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Description
The MOTH is an original character from my current story project - the time-consuming IN LAK'ECH Mythos, still in initial stages of development.
As you can tell by her armor's design, it's inspired by some science fiction and tokusatsu backgrounds. But it's also directly derived from another design, that of the original " EPSILON" armor, one of the 12+ armors from the Alpha-Omega series that I've designed last year. Each of them has an unique power and also play a major role in the IN LAK'ECH Mythos. The Moth's customized EPSILON armor allows her to generate seismic impacts and control earth.

LIKED IT? Then FOLLOW ME and support my work throughout the social networks!
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THE INSECT SYNDICATE BEGINS
In the IN LAK'ECH Mythos, the MOTH is a member of the Insect Syndicate, a semi-official enforcement/security group headquertered in Chinchaysuyu (equivalent to the northern Peruvian Coast), a State/district of Tahuantinsuyu (named after the original Inca Empire, in the IN LAK'ECH Mythos a larger modern State which spans from Colombia in the North to the northern regions of Chile and Argentina in the South, encompassing areas from Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. It's divided into four "suyus" or regions, and the capital, Moche, is located in Chinchaysuyu). The Syndicate's leader and founding member, the ICHNEUMON, is himself the major military authority of the Chinchaysuyu region, and an official " MALLKI" Cyborg General (named after the Inca royal mummies, the Mallki are the main military authorities of Tahuantinsuyu, each one is assigned to each suyu) from Tahuantinsuyu.
The Insect Syndicate was officially founded in September 2009, when riots had just resumed in the metropolitan area of Chinchaysuyu after Tupaq Amaru III, a popular, yet controversial figure who was a guerrilla leader, revolutionary indigenous socialist during the era of the Peruvian Empire (that was replaced by the Socialist Republic of Tahuantinsuyu in 1969, following the victory of Tupaq's fellows and the capture & execution of the Peruvian emperor, Urcon Verbo, a dictator who was more like a CIA puppet) and the eventual President of Tahuantinsuyu from 1979 to 2000, when he went missing (and reports of his supposed death began to rise). He returned on March 2009, and on April 1st was appointed by Tahuantinsuyu's current president, Herrera Humala (from the traditional Communist Party of Tahuantinsuyu, Humala took the position in 2006, shortly after Julio Huanca, the current president since 2005's elections, from the left, social-democratic opposition party PSP has resigned), as Prime Minister. This move was poorly received by several sectors of the international community as a threat to democracy, but the Tahuantinsuyuan government, like all others, really didn't let its own population take charge of any effective measure over the decisions that concerned their own living (can democracy even exist, if in the end most of the people that compose a mass society are rather obliged to live in these conditions than they do it willingly?), and through its security forces often committed human rights violations, supported by its own corrupt law system.

THE SAQRARUNA
Between 2009 and 2011, the ICHNEUMON and the FIREFLY were the only two members of the Insect Syndicate, however their main sponsor, SPECTRO, the head of the secret intergalactic Saqraruna Organization (that operates in Tahuantinsuyu for centuries), already had interest in capturing, customizing other super-powered Alpha-Omega armors and recruiting genetically fit users to don these armors and operate within the Insect Syndicate. Until May 2010, most of these were owned by the AXIS Institute, a private military academy (or rather bounty hunter academy), sponsored by the armors' so-called developers, the american military technology corporation ABEL Inc. and the Teutonic (German) Ulhaden Corporation. Because of inner disputes and the threat of exposing its darkest secrets, the AXIS was closed and the ownership of each armor divided between different figures, some more and some less related to the aforementioned military companies. Before SPECTRO's minions could start the harvest, however, some armors (Psi, Iota, Epsilon, Alpha) have been previously located and stolen by traditional enemies of AXIS, like the inhuman lizard-man Cuetzpalin Paynal, and ultimately fell to the hands of independent, paramilitary anarchists across the globe. Others (Ni, Mi, Sigma, Pi) were held tighter by far-right nationalists.
The members of the Insect Syndicate operate accordingly to the orders given by their leader ICHNEUMON, who in turn operates accordingly to "the interests of the State of Tahuantinsuyu" as the MALLKI Cyborg General of the province of Chinchaysuyu. These interests are dictated by Tahuantinsuyu's Council for Advanced Scientific, Technological, Industrial and Energy Development, a not so public organ from the State which most recent public relations manager as of 2009 is a cyborg ("post-human") named Choque Illa. From behind, the council is merely a mask for the Saqraruna Organization, which leader, SPECTRO (reputedly, a "Yakuruna" alien. Actually, a centuries-old Artificial Intelligence), has been a long-time ally of Tupaq Amaru III (even before he was called as such. Tupaq the Tahuantinsuyuan leader is actually a vessel for an ancient Elemental God of Darkness). But that's a story for another day. Like with the MALLKI Cyborgs, the identities behind each Insect Syndicate member (if they have one) are hidden even among their own. Most of them live in Chinchaysuyu as citizens, but while activated for a mission, they dress up and only refer to each other with their respective "Insect identities". The public also have absolutely no contact to the IS objectives, all they've got to know is that they're some kind of Tahuantinsuyuan secret agent. Despite that, each member have a very different background, several of them aren't even of Tahuantinsuyuan nationality, and have been recruited under equally different circumstances (all, however, felt a threatening presence).
The true loyalty of the Insect Syndicate is to SPECTRO, someone they don't even know (save perhaps for Ichneumon, and after some time, the Firefly, the SCORPION and the HORNET). Like all, they also aren't used to the fact that their very armors haven't actually been developed by ABEL Inc or Ulhaden Corporation, instead they were given to personnel of these enterprises by a secret supplier named Archimedes (from a secret organization, the Novus Civilizatio), and both ABEL and Ulhaden were merely tasked to modify them and adapt them to human usage (the armors' raw material secretly comes from biomechanical aliens, the Dzolob and Aluxob, from the planet of Sothis, colonized by Archimedes and his sponsors). Of course they turned the armors' customization into their latest products, promising generations of super soldiers for the West (as long as the human subjects survived the usage of such armors. In several cases, they resulted in side effects, and that's why the AXIS Institute employed so many scientists and spent so many resources on investigating the armors, rather than just handing it to any apt agent), what inadvertently subverted the armors' original goal (at least according to the cryptic Archimedes) - these armors are symbiotes that interact with their users, and were "meant to bound to the most genetically apt human vessels". They have a major role to play in the ongoing process of Human Automation, and Archimedes has an untold connection to the Saqraruna.

EPSILON
Before the AXIS Institute dissipated in 2010, the latest user of the EPSILON armor was the Frisian/Lithuanian agent Dracus Bathory Sonck, who had been reportedly killed by "demons" (more specifically, Ahuitzotl - from the nahuatl "spiky water creature", a name used for a variety of underwater creatures, it's also the name of a species known elsewhere as Telkhines) during one of the last AXIS Missions, the MISSION: ATLANTIS, in which seven AXIS agents were sent to "rescue refugees in an uncharted terrain", an island that mysteriously grew out of an interdimensional rift between the Bermuda Triangle and the Sargassus Sea. There, the agents met military Cuetzpalin (from the nahuatl "lizard", a species of inhuman humanoid reptiles some agents were used to because a few of them reappeared on Earth in late 2008. They're native to the realm of Aztlán, however they claim to have inhabited the American continent centuries before they were hunt to extinction by dark forces [the Saqraruna] since the colonization) from Aztlán, and engaged in a battle that cost the lives of all, save for agents YPSILON, LAMBDA and RHO. On the occasion, the Alpha and Epsilon armors were taken by an independent faction of belligerents, the informal "Necoc Yaotl" (from the nahuatl "Enemy of Both Sides", an alternative name of the Mexican deity Tezcatlipoca, it was a group composed of anarchists, human and non-human, who were following the trail of slave trading, in order to locate missing indigenous populations from South America, and ended up on the mysterious island as well, where after some investigation they'd find the ones they were looking for).
Among the Necoc Yaotl, the infamous Cuetzpalin Paynal, know for his "terrorist acts" that have arguably improved the conditions of several non-human animals raised in farms for the last two years (by forcibly ceasing operation of countless slaughterhouses, breeding facilities, and other animal exploitation establishments), had plans for the fate of the armors he and his associates salvaged: to distribute them among a network of trustworthy anarchists across the globe. From his actions since 2008 up to June 2010, he met several independent groups of militants, and tried to empower and train them to make effective, radical direct actions against the status quo. He even had some temporary association with organized crime in order to gather resources such as military equipment & weapons, so he could train those militants, alongside urban protesters, indigenous communities and marginalized populations to resist State security, and ultimately invade and sabotage State and corporate businesses, equipments and means of production, what resulted in poilitical destabilization on several emerging economies, including his main playground, Brazil. The original idea was to keep the salvaged armors - Paynal knew the armors had super powers because of past fights against AXIS agents, that's why he and the other "Necoc Yaotl" bothered to salvage them in first place - running through the international network of anarchist warriors, but instead, some of its users kept some armors as their own property, and became full-time vigilantes in their communities. Such case is that of Epsilon's user, a young man from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Between June 2010 and October 2011, several independent anarchist cells of paramilitary activists have started independent, sometimes spontaneous direct action campaigns that not only damaged State sovereignty and disrupted social hierarchy and suppression, but also ignited conflicts between some sectors of mass society, especially during the time of the Inquisition perpetrated by a self-proclaimed Holy Roman Empire, born from trembling States in the EU as a response to the growing anarchy. The "Necoc Yaotl", as it was called by mass media, however, never existed as an organized group, let alone a centralized one. With the growth of repression, however, the network broke, and several of its former occasional associates broke with it. Affinity groups turned into meaningless closed circles, "grassroots organization" was prevented by the same cells that advocated for it, as they miserably tried to cling towards an irreconcilably "popular opinion" that would rather support the return of declared tyrannical governments. People lived in fear, and, ambushed by the gods, those who surpassed humanity were impeded once again. In October 2012, William Mattoni, the 18 years old who secretly used to be the Cuetzpalin Paynal (but has quit using his transformative powers for months, in order to prevent his full, permanent transformation into an inhuman lizard), was captured and imprisoned by Brazilian military officers alongside some more youngsters during a riot publicly associated with the Free-fare movement (which public agenda was reducing the taxes of public transport. William, however, wasn't associated to the movement's direction and despised its single issue peaceful protest, his goal was to purely instigate anarchy, and through the destruction of property, destroy the establishment of the State and other hierarchical organizations). This wasn't the first time he was jailed, however it was the first time he was jailed after not being Paynal anymore, in other words the first time he was powerless to resist imprisonment. His only source of some supernatural power was the Nemontemi stone, but before his capture he handled it to an acquaintance of his, and instructed it to guard it and follow a series of tasks to "keep the fight".
Around the same time, in Rio de Janeiro, the current user of the Epsilon armor was being persecuted by a mysterious assailant, unnoticed by the bloodthirsty, yet ultimately cowardly police and military of Brazil's most dangerous class warzones. This dark-clad warrior was no one but the third Insect Syndicate member, the SCORPION, who came to capture the armor, and so he did. SPECTRO, however, had deemed another user for it, after it was modified into an Insect Syndicate addition.

THE MOTH
The secret identity behind the Moth isn't completely human. She's a young woman from Oaxaca known as Nayeli Lopez, however she's also host to an ancient Cihuacoatl (from the nahuatl "Snake woman", a race native to Aztlán that like the Cuetzpalin had populations in the American Continent for some centuries before the colonization, and that also takes humans for hosts after a certain amount of time of symbiosis between the human and the parasite's Tonalcoatl - "fate snake" - that contains the ancient parasite's memories, consciousness and personality. It's a Cuetzpalin's or a Cihuacoatl's first and last stages of life), named by the locals as Pitao Ko Shuub. This ancient Cihuacoatl, like the rest of her kind, has been historically and politically tied to the Cihuateteoh ("goddesses") and the Tzitzimimeh ("star demons"), entities that have been part of the First Sun Era's (40th - 29th Centuries b.c) Aztec Confederation, but that have been separated and deemed as enemies of the Confederation in the Second Era, as they suffered a diaspora, what led some of them into Earth (Aztlán and Earth are connected today by three portals, one of them in the interdimensional island of Nahui-Atl, on the Bermuda Triangle, another in Mitla, Oaxaca, and a third in Northern Brazil). After many centuries, the Cihuateteoh clans have divided and some became indistinguishable from human populace, while others still preserved their original goal of returning to Aztlán and founding a female-only nation of Cihuatlampa, led by each clans' matriarchs. That, however, would only be regarded if they were able to find the missing goddess Itzpapalotl (ruler of the city of Tamoanchan, arguably the most politically influential Cihuateotl). Some younger cihuateteoh didn't pursue that path, though, even though in pre-hispanic times they engaged into fighting the Cuetzpalin, the heirs of the Aztec Confederation, whom they had a long time lasting rivalry.
That rivalry between the Cihuateteoh and the Cuetzpalin has been exploited in the Fifth Sun Era (the time of the Mexica and still the current era, starting in the 12th Century and lasting up to our days) by an enemy of Aztlán, the Inca ruler Topa Inca Yupanqui, who has conquered some Cihuateteoh clans in South and Central America, like in the Caribbean Sea, and employed them to hunt the Cuetzpalin from the Mexican armed forces. Since that time (a series of conflicts which lasted from 1481 to 1493), some of the Cihuateteoh had forged a timeless alliance with the Saqraruna and other sectors of the Aztec society which decidedly stood against the sovereignty of the Teteoh ("Gods") from the Aztec Cofederation. From traitorous Centzontotochtin ("four hundred rabbits", a race of humanoid rabbits from the city-state of Patemalinalli, in a desert area of Aztlán) to Micteca (inhabitants of Mictlán, Aztlán's underworld shrouded in the mist) and Centzonmimixcoa ("Four hundred alike the Cloud Serpent", Cloud Serpent being Mixcoatl, a nahuatl name for Tupaq the God of Darkness, they're beings of darkness who protagonized the Second Sun Era's lasting intergalactic conflict known as the Topakhon Wars), the Cihuateteoh that sided with the Saqraruna also did so as a covenant which allowed their eldest matriarchs to live among the humans in a colonial and "post-colonial" Mexico - and that included Pitao Ko Shuub. She's a close associate to a Centzonmimixcoa named Mimich ("Arrow Fish", known elsewhere as Aeshma, the daeva of wrath).
The Cihuacoatl matriarch has been in search of new vessels for a while, and in July 2009 she was almost killed by Cuetzpalin Paynal, in a time he was investigating the trail of Saqraruna agents, what brought him to know the race of the Cihuacoatl. She has barely come alive out of the conflict, if it wasn't for the aid of an Aztec Saqraruna associate, the Centzontotochtin Ometochtli ("Two Rabbit"), who later introduced her to her newly young human host. Like the relation between a Cuetzpalin/Tonalcoatl and its host, for sometime they keep a healthy symbiosis which allows the host (in this case, Nayeli) to remain in charge of its body and consciousness, communicating with the Tonalcoatl (in this case, Pitao Ko Shuub) in a telepathic level. Nayeli can also transform herself into a reptile Cihuacoatl. Recruited in October 2012, Nayeli has been tasked to hunt down the Psi armor that was located in southern Brazil, and in the eventual conflict she'd come to fight the one currently in possession of the Nemontemi Stone.

MORE INSECT SYNDICATE MEMBERS
ICHNEUMON | FIREFLY | HORNET | WASP

Description
The MOTH is an original character from my current story project - the time-consuming IN LAK'ECH Mythos, still in initial stages of development.
As you can tell by her armor's design, it's inspired by some science fiction and tokusatsu backgrounds. But it's also directly derived from another design, that of the original " EPSILON" armor, one of the 12+ armors from the Alpha-Omega series that I've designed last year. Each of them has an unique power and also play a major role in the IN LAK'ECH Mythos. The Moth's customized EPSILON armor allows her to generate seismic impacts and control earth.

LIKED IT? Then FOLLOW ME and support my work throughout the social networks!
Behance | tumblr | instagram | facebook

THE INSECT SYNDICATE BEGINS
In the IN LAK'ECH Mythos, the MOTH is a member of the Insect Syndicate, a semi-official enforcement/security group headquertered in Chinchaysuyu (equivalent to the northern Peruvian Coast), a State/district of Tahuantinsuyu (named after the original Inca Empire, in the IN LAK'ECH Mythos a larger modern State which spans from Colombia in the North to the northern regions of Chile and Argentina in the South, encompassing areas from Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. It's divided into four "suyus" or regions, and the capital, Moche, is located in Chinchaysuyu). The Syndicate's leader and founding member, the ICHNEUMON, is himself the major military authority of the Chinchaysuyu region, and an official " MALLKI" Cyborg General (named after the Inca royal mummies, the Mallki are the main military authorities of Tahuantinsuyu, each one is assigned to each suyu) from Tahuantinsuyu.
The Insect Syndicate was officially founded in September 2009, when riots had just resumed in the metropolitan area of Chinchaysuyu after Tupaq Amaru III, a popular, yet controversial figure who was a guerrilla leader, revolutionary indigenous socialist during the era of the Peruvian Empire (that was replaced by the Socialist Republic of Tahuantinsuyu in 1969, following the victory of Tupaq's fellows and the capture & execution of the Peruvian emperor, Urcon Verbo, a dictator who was more like a CIA puppet) and the eventual President of Tahuantinsuyu from 1979 to 2000, when he went missing (and reports of his supposed death began to rise). He returned on March 2009, and on April 1st was appointed by Tahuantinsuyu's current president, Herrera Humala (from the traditional Communist Party of Tahuantinsuyu, Humala took the position in 2006, shortly after Julio Huanca, the current president since 2005's elections, from the left, social-democratic opposition party PSP has resigned), as Prime Minister. This move was poorly received by several sectors of the international community as a threat to democracy, but the Tahuantinsuyuan government, like all others, really didn't let its own population take charge of any effective measure over the decisions that concerned their own living (can democracy even exist, if in the end most of the people that compose a mass society are rather obliged to live in these conditions than they do it willingly?), and through its security forces often committed human rights violations, supported by its own corrupt law system.

THE SAQRARUNA
Between 2009 and 2011, the ICHNEUMON and the FIREFLY were the only two members of the Insect Syndicate, however their main sponsor, SPECTRO, the head of the secret intergalactic Saqraruna Organization (that operates in Tahuantinsuyu for centuries), already had interest in capturing, customizing other super-powered Alpha-Omega armors and recruiting genetically fit users to don these armors and operate within the Insect Syndicate. Until May 2010, most of these were owned by the AXIS Institute, a private military academy (or rather bounty hunter academy), sponsored by the armors' so-called developers, the american military technology corporation ABEL Inc. and the Teutonic (German) Ulhaden Corporation. Because of inner disputes and the threat of exposing its darkest secrets, the AXIS was closed and the ownership of each armor divided between different figures, some more and some less related to the aforementioned military companies. Before SPECTRO's minions could start the harvest, however, some armors (Psi, Iota, Epsilon, Alpha) have been previously located and stolen by traditional enemies of AXIS, like the inhuman lizard-man Cuetzpalin Paynal, and ultimately fell to the hands of independent, paramilitary anarchists across the globe. Others (Ni, Mi, Sigma, Pi) were held tighter by far-right nationalists.
The members of the Insect Syndicate operate accordingly to the orders given by their leader ICHNEUMON, who in turn operates accordingly to "the interests of the State of Tahuantinsuyu" as the MALLKI Cyborg General of the province of Chinchaysuyu. These interests are dictated by Tahuantinsuyu's Council for Advanced Scientific, Technological, Industrial and Energy Development, a not so public organ from the State which most recent public relations manager as of 2009 is a cyborg ("post-human") named Choque Illa. From behind, the council is merely a mask for the Saqraruna Organization, which leader, SPECTRO (reputedly, a "Yakuruna" alien. Actually, a centuries-old Artificial Intelligence), has been a long-time ally of Tupaq Amaru III (even before he was called as such. Tupaq the Tahuantinsuyuan leader is actually a vessel for an ancient Elemental God of Darkness). But that's a story for another day. Like with the MALLKI Cyborgs, the identities behind each Insect Syndicate member (if they have one) are hidden even among their own. Most of them live in Chinchaysuyu as citizens, but while activated for a mission, they dress up and only refer to each other with their respective "Insect identities". The public also have absolutely no contact to the IS objectives, all they've got to know is that they're some kind of Tahuantinsuyuan secret agent. Despite that, each member have a very different background, several of them aren't even of Tahuantinsuyuan nationality, and have been recruited under equally different circumstances (all, however, felt a threatening presence).
The true loyalty of the Insect Syndicate is to SPECTRO, someone they don't even know (save perhaps for Ichneumon, and after some time, the Firefly, the SCORPION and the HORNET). Like all, they also aren't used to the fact that their very armors haven't actually been developed by ABEL Inc or Ulhaden Corporation, instead they were given to personnel of these enterprises by a secret supplier named Archimedes (from a secret organization, the Novus Civilizatio), and both ABEL and Ulhaden were merely tasked to modify them and adapt them to human usage (the armors' raw material secretly comes from biomechanical aliens, the Dzolob and Aluxob, from the planet of Sothis, colonized by Archimedes and his sponsors). Of course they turned the armors' customization into their latest products, promising generations of super soldiers for the West (as long as the human subjects survived the usage of such armors. In several cases, they resulted in side effects, and that's why the AXIS Institute employed so many scientists and spent so many resources on investigating the armors, rather than just handing it to any apt agent), what inadvertently subverted the armors' original goal (at least according to the cryptic Archimedes) - these armors are symbiotes that interact with their users, and were "meant to bound to the most genetically apt human vessels". They have a major role to play in the ongoing process of Human Automation, and Archimedes has an untold connection to the Saqraruna.

EPSILON
Before the AXIS Institute dissipated in 2010, the latest user of the EPSILON armor was the Frisian/Lithuanian agent Dracus Bathory Sonck, who had been reportedly killed by "demons" (more specifically, Ahuitzotl - from the nahuatl "spiky water creature", a name used for a variety of underwater creatures, it's also the name of a species known elsewhere as Telkhines) during one of the last AXIS Missions, the MISSION: ATLANTIS, in which seven AXIS agents were sent to "rescue refugees in an uncharted terrain", an island that mysteriously grew out of an interdimensional rift between the Bermuda Triangle and the Sargassus Sea. There, the agents met military Cuetzpalin (from the nahuatl "lizard", a species of inhuman humanoid reptiles some agents were used to because a few of them reappeared on Earth in late 2008. They're native to the realm of Aztlán, however they claim to have inhabited the American continent centuries before they were hunt to extinction by dark forces [the Saqraruna] since the colonization) from Aztlán, and engaged in a battle that cost the lives of all, save for agents YPSILON, LAMBDA and RHO. On the occasion, the Alpha and Epsilon armors were taken by an independent faction of belligerents, the informal "Necoc Yaotl" (from the nahuatl "Enemy of Both Sides", an alternative name of the Mexican deity Tezcatlipoca, it was a group composed of anarchists, human and non-human, who were following the trail of slave trading, in order to locate missing indigenous populations from South America, and ended up on the mysterious island as well, where after some investigation they'd find the ones they were looking for).
Among the Necoc Yaotl, the infamous Cuetzpalin Paynal, know for his "terrorist acts" that have arguably improved the conditions of several non-human animals raised in farms for the last two years (by forcibly ceasing operation of countless slaughterhouses, breeding facilities, and other animal exploitation establishments), had plans for the fate of the armors he and his associates salvaged: to distribute them among a network of trustworthy anarchists across the globe. From his actions since 2008 up to June 2010, he met several independent groups of militants, and tried to empower and train them to make effective, radical direct actions against the status quo. He even had some temporary association with organized crime in order to gather resources such as military equipment & weapons, so he could train those militants, alongside urban protesters, indigenous communities and marginalized populations to resist State security, and ultimately invade and sabotage State and corporate businesses, equipments and means of production, what resulted in poilitical destabilization on several emerging economies, including his main playground, Brazil. The original idea was to keep the salvaged armors - Paynal knew the armors had super powers because of past fights against AXIS agents, that's why he and the other "Necoc Yaotl" bothered to salvage them in first place - running through the international network of anarchist warriors, but instead, some of its users kept some armors as their own property, and became full-time vigilantes in their communities. Such case is that of Epsilon's user, a young man from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Between June 2010 and October 2011, several independent anarchist cells of paramilitary activists have started independent, sometimes spontaneous direct action campaigns that not only damaged State sovereignty and disrupted social hierarchy and suppression, but also ignited conflicts between some sectors of mass society, especially during the time of the Inquisition perpetrated by a self-proclaimed Holy Roman Empire, born from trembling States in the EU as a response to the growing anarchy. The "Necoc Yaotl", as it was called by mass media, however, never existed as an organized group, let alone a centralized one. With the growth of repression, however, the network broke, and several of its former occasional associates broke with it. Affinity groups turned into meaningless closed circles, "grassroots organization" was prevented by the same cells that advocated for it, as they miserably tried to cling towards an irreconcilably "popular opinion" that would rather support the return of declared tyrannical governments. People lived in fear, and, ambushed by the gods, those who surpassed humanity were impeded once again. In October 2012, William Mattoni, the 18 years old who secretly used to be the Cuetzpalin Paynal (but has quit using his transformative powers for months, in order to prevent his full, permanent transformation into an inhuman lizard), was captured and imprisoned by Brazilian military officers alongside some more youngsters during a riot publicly associated with the Free-fare movement (which public agenda was reducing the taxes of public transport. William, however, wasn't associated to the movement's direction and despised its single issue peaceful protest, his goal was to purely instigate anarchy, and through the destruction of property, destroy the establishment of the State and other hierarchical organizations). This wasn't the first time he was jailed, however it was the first time he was jailed after not being Paynal anymore, in other words the first time he was powerless to resist imprisonment. His only source of some supernatural power was the Nemontemi stone, but before his capture he handled it to an acquaintance of his, and instructed it to guard it and follow a series of tasks to "keep the fight".
Around the same time, in Rio de Janeiro, the current user of the Epsilon armor was being persecuted by a mysterious assailant, unnoticed by the bloodthirsty, yet ultimately cowardly police and military of Brazil's most dangerous class warzones. This dark-clad warrior was no one but the third Insect Syndicate member, the SCORPION, who came to capture the armor, and so he did. SPECTRO, however, had deemed another user for it, after it was modified into an Insect Syndicate addition.

THE MOTH
The secret identity behind the Moth isn't completely human. She's a young woman from Oaxaca known as Nayeli Lopez, however she's also host to an ancient Cihuacoatl (from the nahuatl "Snake woman", a race native to Aztlán that like the Cuetzpalin had populations in the American Continent for some centuries before the colonization, and that also takes humans for hosts after a certain amount of time of symbiosis between the human and the parasite's Tonalcoatl - "fate snake" - that contains the ancient parasite's memories, consciousness and personality. It's a Cuetzpalin's or a Cihuacoatl's first and last stages of life), named by the locals as Pitao Ko Shuub. This ancient Cihuacoatl, like the rest of her kind, has been historically and politically tied to the Cihuateteoh ("goddesses") and the Tzitzimimeh ("star demons"), entities that have been part of the First Sun Era's (40th - 29th Centuries b.c) Aztec Confederation, but that have been separated and deemed as enemies of the Confederation in the Second Era, as they suffered a diaspora, what led some of them into Earth (Aztlán and Earth are connected today by three portals, one of them in the interdimensional island of Nahui-Atl, on the Bermuda Triangle, another in Mitla, Oaxaca, and a third in Northern Brazil). After many centuries, the Cihuateteoh clans have divided and some became indistinguishable from human populace, while others still preserved their original goal of returning to Aztlán and founding a female-only nation of Cihuatlampa, led by each clans' matriarchs. That, however, would only be regarded if they were able to find the missing goddess Itzpapalotl (ruler of the city of Tamoanchan, arguably the most politically influential Cihuateotl). Some younger cihuateteoh didn't pursue that path, though, even though in pre-hispanic times they engaged into fighting the Cuetzpalin, the heirs of the Aztec Confederation, whom they had a long time lasting rivalry.
That rivalry between the Cihuateteoh and the Cuetzpalin has been exploited in the Fifth Sun Era (the time of the Mexica and still the current era, starting in the 12th Century and lasting up to our days) by an enemy of Aztlán, the Inca ruler Topa Inca Yupanqui, who has conquered some Cihuateteoh clans in South and Central America, like in the Caribbean Sea, and employed them to hunt the Cuetzpalin from the Mexican armed forces. Since that time (a series of conflicts which lasted from 1481 to 1493), some of the Cihuateteoh had forged a timeless alliance with the Saqraruna and other sectors of the Aztec society which decidedly stood against the sovereignty of the Teteoh ("Gods") from the Aztec Cofederation. From traitorous Centzontotochtin ("four hundred rabbits", a race of humanoid rabbits from the city-state of Patemalinalli, in a desert area of Aztlán) to Micteca (inhabitants of Mictlán, Aztlán's underworld shrouded in the mist) and Centzonmimixcoa ("Four hundred alike the Cloud Serpent", Cloud Serpent being Mixcoatl, a nahuatl name for Tupaq the God of Darkness, they're beings of darkness who protagonized the Second Sun Era's lasting intergalactic conflict known as the Topakhon Wars), the Cihuateteoh that sided with the Saqraruna also did so as a covenant which allowed their eldest matriarchs to live among the humans in a colonial and "post-colonial" Mexico - and that included Pitao Ko Shuub. She's a close associate to a Centzonmimixcoa named Mimich ("Arrow Fish", known elsewhere as Aeshma, the daeva of wrath).
The Cihuacoatl matriarch has been in search of new vessels for a while, and in July 2009 she was almost killed by Cuetzpalin Paynal, in a time he was investigating the trail of Saqraruna agents, what brought him to know the race of the Cihuacoatl. She has barely come alive out of the conflict, if it wasn't for the aid of an Aztec Saqraruna associate, the Centzontotochtin Ometochtli ("Two Rabbit"), who later introduced her to her newly young human host. Like the relation between a Cuetzpalin/Tonalcoatl and its host, for sometime they keep a healthy symbiosis which allows the host (in this case, Nayeli) to remain in charge of its body and consciousness, communicating with the Tonalcoatl (in this case, Pitao Ko Shuub) in a telepathic level. Nayeli can also transform herself into a reptile Cihuacoatl. Recruited in October 2012, Nayeli has been tasked to hunt down the Psi armor that was located in southern Brazil, and in the eventual conflict she'd come to fight the one currently in possession of the Nemontemi Stone.

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