SPIDER

The SPIDER 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 his armor's design, it's inspired by a Nephila clavata Orb-weaver Spider, also known as Jorogumo in Japan, and also has some science fiction and tokusatsu influences, not to mention some slight samurai aesthetics. It's also partially derived from another design, that of the original "THETA" armor, one of the 27+ armors from the Alpha-Omega series that I've designed last year in collaboration with . Each of them has an unique power and also play a major role in the IN LAK'ECH Mythos. The Spider's customized THETA armor allows him the ability to resist damage

THE INSECT SYNDICATE BEGINS
In the IN LAK'ECH Mythos, the SPIDER 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 highest military authorities of Tahuantinsuyu, each one is assigned to a 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 captain 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 and perpetrated by it's police (it's what police does, afterall).

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, thus expanding it into an internattionally operating, semi-official/secret military & intel agency. 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, including it's role on international slave labor, the breeding of non-human hybrids and their release on "fringe areas" across the world for the political agenda of their own sponsors (basically, neo-liberalism, enhancement of dependence between "third world communities" and centralized corporations), 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, leading to the creation of an informal network of armed affinity groups. Other armors (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. But in truth, a centuries-old Artificial Intelligence), has been a long-time ally of Tupaq Amaru III (even before he was called as such or had a human face. 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 missions or goals, 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, have been meticulously chosen and approached, and surpassed life-threatening tests).
    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 physically 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.

THETA
    The armor which was modified into SPIDER's since his recruitment in March 2013 is the original Theta armor, catalogued by the ABEL Inc. since 1985, supposedly developed in ABEL's Lacey Township facility, it's branch on New Jersey, USA. The eighth armor of the series and seventh to be owned by ABEL Inc, it was originally trusted to Frederick Parquagh, who fought in the Gulf War, and later Earl Lennox, who died in an episode involving the theft of the secret GAMMA armor by Cade Gilson, an ABEL employee associated to crime, who used it to kill Lennox when the later was activated to kill him and retrieve the armor, in 1999. Yao Wu, a xenobiologist, geneticist and old time ABEL employee, who has been involved with the customization of the IOTA armor at least since 1987, in ABEL's japanese facility (at Okinawa, Kyushu) was at the time studying a possible suppressor of "the GAMMA Symbiote" (despite commonly called an armor, some people know better), and after developing the first samples of such suppressor, was chosen by the enterprise to take the mantle of THETA which was just recently left empty after Lennox's assassination. One of Yao's first and most important missions as Agent THETA was ABEL's Operation: MILLENNIUM in 2000. The operation was launched by request of the CIA and planned to capture the Tahuantinsuyuan leader Tupaq Amaru III when he was reported to be visiting the Death Valley Desert in Arizona (where, unknown to all, there's an underground lab operated by the secret Saqraruna Organization). He survived, but the mission was a major failure, not only because most agents involved died for reasons ABEL's press preferred to hide, but because it could be classified as a mere bounty-hunting attempt at a legitimate ruler of a sovereign nation, who was merely exercising his rights (in travelling to another country), and nothing could be used against their target, or could merely link him to crime or war intentions. These successive failures damaged ABEL's reputation to the CIA and international security forces, including the traditional INTERPOL, and those would only be healed by an agreement between it and the Teutonic Ulhaden Corporation, that would become the sponsors of a Gallia-headquartered, international, private military academy - the AXIS Institute, the next legal owner of most of the super-powered Alpha-Omega armors. Like with ABEL, the Ulhaden corporation was a facade to the secret origin of the armors and even then suffered the deaths of several agents in the late 20th century, during the failed Operation: RED ISLAND, which ended with the destruction of Bermeja, an island at the Atlantic region of Mexico - the same event where Tupaq was trapped into the Absolute Darkness by some of his brothers and rivals, the Elemental Gods. This operation happened months after MILLENNIUM. A great intel was lost as well, and traditional corporations like the Catholic Church and private military forces under public facades, headed by UN's current secretary of security, Brazilian ex-general Wagner K (who used to be a bounty hunter at the time Tupaq was a revolutionary, and later a Brazilian dictatorship general during the seventies and eighties), were instrumental to forge AXIS and its own role in the international politics, while ABEL and Ulhaden should keep working on more armors and more tests. The secret breeding and enslavement of "demonoids" (non-human hybrids which AXIS claimed to be natural or supernatural, intelligent threats to humanity) within AXIS' grounds would keep its own atmosphere less suspicious to its inner staff. Under the AXIS Institute, Yao continued his role, not only as agent Theta and as a researcher, but also as an instructor of AXIS' students and agents.

"TSUCHIGUMO"
    In 10th July 2009, after a three day-long AXIS mission led by THETA, in collaboration with OMICRON, KAPPA and other non-Alpha-Omega AXIS agents (the "numerical series", AXIS' common army personnel), Yao has been killed by the combined efforts of Kosai Nakamura - the user of the IOTA armor at the time, and the reason such mission was launched in first place - and Mangai Minami, a young and influential member of a Kyushu-based Yakuza syndicate called Kozakura, and who harbored intentions of overthrowing the oyabun (something more or less like a "godfather", the leader of each syndicate) of another syndicate, the larger Sumiyoshi-kai, based in Minato, Tokyo. Kosai himself was the oyabun of the Kozakura not long before, when his position was negotiated with Tao Qing, a strange, scarlet-armored Fire Lord and businessman from Haijian (China) in exchange of his protection. Mangai, his childhood friend, was making his way among conspirers within the Sumiyoshi, and Tao Qing took advantage of their aspirations to lead an inner struggle within Yakuza that should break its most powerful syndicate, the Kobe-based Yamabishi, headed by the long time standing kumicho (some sort of "great oyabun"), Tsubasa, whose personal guardian was no one other than Oliver Funabashi, the current user of the IOTA armor (which power is super strength), at least since 2002. How come AXIS and ABEL Inc never bothered let some Yakuza bodyguard use their product for so long? Your guess is as good as mine and Kosai's - Yao Wu, AXIS' scientist, is a close associate to the Yamabishi and personal associate to Tsubasa, and also has an influential position in corrupt sectors within the Yamato (Japanese) military and science committees, what put him and his allies in agreement with the demands of Wagner K, UN's Security chairman as of 2009. Kosai didn't know Yao was Agent THETA, and his acquisition of the IOTA was thanks to a coincidential action carried out by Tao Qing and Cuetzpalin Paynal (a.k.a Tokageroh), a super-fast lizard-man regarded as a terrorist or serial killer, who claims to fight for the end of industrial civilization, mass society and animal exploitation, who has also been associated to multiple anti-colonial armed resistance groups across the world. His association with the Kozakura was accidental as he was getting in the way of the Yamabishi, and his actions ultimately led to the killing of the kumicho and its bodyguard, as well Kosai's appropriation of the armor. Either way, despite their apparent benefit in finding an occasional ally on Tokageroh, Kosai and Mangai wouldn't succeed in their intentions of becoming the next oyabuns by Tao Qing's own recommendations - instead, with resources which they kept from the Kozakura, Sumiyoshi (whose leader, Hareaki Fujioka, had just been killed in the conflicts, and replaced by Hikaru Hayate, an ally of Tao Qing) and which Kosai inherited from his family, they created a private weapons & military equipment manufacturer and distributor, the Shin Zaibatsu, a facade to their business which also engaged in illicit operations such as the theft of other military equipment - and their eventual "redistribution". The Shin Zaibatsu operated through several distinct Yakuza syndicates, however it secretly benefitted Tao Qing's allies, and in no time Mangai Minami increased his ranks as Shin Zaibatsu's CEO and public relations manager (Kosai remained as it's lead economist, a secondary director and enterprise relations manager).
    With a China-backed mafia rising in South Japan and the capture of major Yakuza syndicates, the Shin Zaibatsu started to act as the main corrupt organization demanding something directly from the Yamato government, through associates in key positions on its military and science committees, a position which weakened UN's Wagner's influence and agenda (replacing it with a more pro-China one), and also  jeopardized AXIS' relation to Yakuza (which Yao and his bosses kept hidden from the other personnel, alongside IOTA's own existence, since its foundation). Surrounded by Kozakura, Sumiyoshi, Shin Zaibatsu and even military personnel who turned on their side in a short-timed guerrilla that took place in Minato, the AXIS' forces have been overwhelmed, and Yao failed to secure his armor - and his life. Agents KAPPA and OMICRON left the mission, a failed one, the first with a huge resentment and doubt, and the second with a clear intention - to leave AXIS' institute and accept the offer of his mentor, Dr. Howard Fang, an ex-Ulhaden researcher currently working for Tahuantinsuyu. The offer, his admission into the Insect Syndicate, as the founding agent FIREFLY. As for the THETA, it fell to the hands of Mangai Minami, the "oyabun" of the Shin Zaibatsu, who started acting as the vigilante "Tsuchigumo" ("earth spider", named after a derogatory term used by the japanese empire to refer to renegade aboriginal clans. Also used to refer to a mythological creature in japanese folklore and species of Tarantulas) at night and as the CEO of a growing enterprise and a celebrity during the day. In his new way of life, Mangai's ambitions haven't dwindled, but he may have overestimated his friendship with his associates, either Kosai, Tao Qing or Paynal (the later who didn't even regard himself as such, despite he made use of some of Shin Zaibatsu's shipments to arm his own guerrillas on Mexico and South America).

BETRAYALS
    Unknown to Mangai, Kosai has been keeping for years a secret relation with the Saqraruna, and some of his former Kozakura allies were armed with equipment supplied by a cyborg named "Catequil", whose true identity is Choque Illa, the public relations manager of the State of Tahuantinsuyu's Council for Advanced Scientifical, Technological, Industrial and Energy Development, a more or less public facade of one of the Saqraruna's main branches. Indeed, it's been Choque Illa who introduced Kosai to Tao Qing back in early 2009. Kosai's relation to the Saqraruna dates back to his, while his father ran a distribution company, his half-brother (Kosai's uncle), Kenshiro Shimada, was a "middle-class" journalist behind the identity of the thief and vigilante known as "Bumblebee", who starting in 1974, exposed the corrupt relation of Yamato's police with the Yakuza Yamabishi Syndicate, and also instigated popular protests vouching for the imprisonment of the police department heads and politicians involved in the scandal. Despite his popularity, though, he was persecuted, and reportedly captured in 1981. It was a fake report, however - he had just been approached by Choque Illa, representative of the Saqraruna, and admitted into their ranks as the irrecognizable ICHNEUMON, general/Mallki of the Chinchaysuyu Province, first revealed to the world in conflicts on Antofagasta, Chile, in the same year of his "capture" in Japan. The Yamabishi kumicho, Shinobu Tsubasa, has proudly taken credit for his capture and cooperation with the police, however he failed to prevent the rise of rival groups within the Yakuza, including the Kozakura-ikka and some sectors of Sumiyoshi-kai, including Kosai and Mangai, who regarded the "Bumblebee" as a hero (Kosai's long-time friendship with Mangai was also carefully calculated by Choque Illa. Kosai, born in 1983, was fated to inherit his father's business after some time, so Choque Illa used Kenshiro to forge an association between the distribution company and the local Kozakura-ikka, while he tracked Kenshiro's illegitimate son, who moved to Kabukicho, Tokyo, alongside his mother, Kiriko Minami. Associated with the Sumiyoshi from an early age, Mangai met Kosai and befriended him, as his ambitions to become an oyabun grew and were influenced by Kosai's own. Mangai, however, never truly found out his or Kosai's relations to Kenshiro Shimada or to the Bumblebee, and like most people, didn't realize the Bumblebee's relation to ICHNEUMON, or realized the claims about Bumblebee's capture were fake).
    In July 2010, a year after its foundation, the Shin Zaibatsu still kept two of their most expensive acquisitions, the UARN-09 Ikuchi and the UALN-03 Q'uq'umatz battle mechs, on different warehouses owned by the company, one at Shizuoka and another at Kagoshima. The existence of those was known by Paynal, and it made him concerned the Shin Zaibatsu could easily sell any of them to whatever military institution (including State armies) which placed a high bet, including some directly involved with the conflict for the land and autonomy of indigenous people across America and Oceania. Shortly after some of Paynal's involvement in actions that ultimately helped the dissolution of  the AXIS' Institute (namely, Mission: ATLANTIS), international networks of informal, armed anarchism-oriented affinity groups have been growing through Paynal's trail, and with the intent to keep them growing under good conditions - and to unite them with other resistance militias, such as indigenoud paramilitary resistance across the Americas - he looked back at some "loose ends" in organized crime he should take care of, before they benefitted his enemies. One of those loose ends was the organization beneath the public facade of Shin Zaibatsu, and the powerful weapons they kept, waiting for multi-billionnaire organizations to buy and use. On a fateful night across the Pacific Ocean, alongside allies (such as fellow Cuetzpalin Montezuma and Omepaynal), Paynal has intercepted a ship commanded by Kosai, who was beaten and thrown into the sea. The IOTA armor and all the cargo, including the battle mechs, transported to a secret base in Australia (where other allies such as the rebel leader "Akamai" waited for the shipment), as Kosai was left for dead. Mangai would hear about that, and not long after, their battle mechs would be witnessed alongside others in multiple episodes of urban guerrilla and "terrorism", starting a new wave of resistance against the States throughout the world, carried by independent anarchist soldiers which the misinformanr mass media tried, but failed to associate with any scapegoat organized group - the NECOC YAOTL, from the nahuatl "Enemy of Both Sides", one of several names used to refer to the Aztec/Mexica deity Tezcatlipoca, is one of such names they came up with. But there's no "Necoc Yaotl group", it was just another prank Paynal left to the mass media, like his own claims about his immortality, or that he was born in a pre-columbian time.
    Kosai has largely remained underground, his activity hid even from Mangai, as he was rescued and kept by the Saqraruna. Mangai, on the other hand, declared war on Paynal, and had some of his international allies - Sicilian Mafia, North and Latin American drug cartels - carrying out violent attacks on independent affiliations that merely resembled anything related to "anarchism" or "Necoc Yaotl". Aside from that, Mangai tried to keep the Shin Zaibatsu growing as a distribution enterprise, making his way into a bourgeois life. In October 1st, 2011, Mangai met Paynal once again at the swamps of French Guyana, from where after a fight, he escaped in a "narco-submarine", and left his enemy behind to fight other allies - the Centzontotochtin ("four hundred rabbits", named after Mexican deities related to drunkeness. Some of them are led by Ometochtli, "two-rabbit") and Ai Apaec, the ancient decapitator god, and timeless agent of the Saqraruna.

    In January 2013, Mangai, representing the Shin Zaibatsu, has joined many other bourgeois, multi-millionnaire businessmen and corporate personnel from different corporations, in an event taking place on "a wildlife reserve" at Central Africa, where select bounty hunters hired by different corporations participated in a hunt against local non-human animals and some "exotic ones" - including dragons and scientifically unclassified creatures often regarded as demons, captured and brought by other groups. Mangai's hired bounty hunter was "Agent Y", and among the rich which money is bathed in blood, he found Kai Huo, a Fire Lord like Tao Qing, who claims to be an ally of Shin Zaibatsu, and mistakenly referred to Mangai as Kosai (who Mangai thought to have died years ago). Kai apologized for his mistake and left, while Mangai was in deep thought - how could Kai be an ally if he never heard of him before, not even from Tao Qing, and why did he refer to him as Kosai? Was that really just a mistake? Mangai witnessed the bounty hunter CORAX (who secretly keeps a lasting obedience to his creators, the Saqraruna), and at first thought he was possibly hired by Kai Huo, before Kai Huo put some show and presented himself as a bounty hunter. All of this has worried Mangai a little, but when he learned one of the "exotic" victims was a Cuetzpalin, who bore a striking resemblance to Paynal (later revealed to be the same), he stopped worrying, and demanded to have his head, for any price. It didn't work out, however, as alongside a rebellion formed by some of the beasts (including a Chthonian Triton, a dragon named Chiron and another named Sphynx), several bounty hunters have been slaughtered and some of their hirers, including Kai Huo, have met the same fate. Mangai, like the coward he is, has escaped, albeit he lost contact with the Agent Y he hired (and thus didn't get to pay him). On their way to destroy everything related to the "Great Hunt", crossing up to South Sudan, the Cuetzpalin and his fellows realized there was an armor missing from an underground cave where it was buried years ago - as if someone came back for it.

    In March, while his debts to Agent Y remained unpaid, Mangai has finally been reached by the Cuetzpalin, who was thirsty for revenge, for Mangai's association with death squads and cartels working for corporate interests against anarchist and indigenous resistance across the globe, and also for his support of hunting animals, under ecological excuses of "population control" (the entire "Great Hunt" megaevent happened under such dirty excuses). With his THETA armor and the assistance of armed bodyguards, Mangai tried to run from the winged lizard-man across metropolitan Tokyo, and after some hours, being severely damaged during his pursuit, he found himself standing at the feet of what seemed to be Agent Y. In a state of despair, Mangai asked him to forgive him as he would pay his debt and the double of it if Agent Y killed the beast persecuting him, as the Agent Y took off his mask and revealed his face -- KOSAI! The Cuetzpalin witnessed Kosai beheading Mangai and later carrying away his corpse, but when he tried to fight him, the old time foe CORAX prevented the reptile from reaching him.
    Kosai was acting as the Agent Y for all this time. Under the pretext of the Great Hunt, Kosai and CORAX have salvaged the ZETA armor from its burial cave, and returned it to the Saqraruna, where they recruited a new agent to don it and become the MANTIS. Kosai's reward would be becoming the next member, the SPIDER, after he killed Mangai and took his armor. More than that, he'd have a share in the profits of the Shin Zaibatsu. But how come Mangai became useless to the Saqraruna? Even when Mangai was its CEO, the Shin Zaibatsu has been just a facade controlled by the Saqraruna, either through Kosai or his associate "Catequil", who are secretly allied to some Fire Lords, including the late Kai Huo, through an underground trade of hidden elements kept between Tahuantinsuyuan mines controlled by Saqraruna and Haijianese enterprises. As it seems, Mangai became unnecessarily exposed and dragged the Cuetzpalin out of his "isolation", possibly endangering the secrecy of Shin Zaibatsu's relations. After that, Kosai was more fit to become the Spider. SPECTRO, the head of the Saqraruna, seems to give no value to any life, including that of his allies. Naive ones would still ask why they remain allied to someone like him, but fear, money (capital) and social relations (status) are some driving forces that can keep not only Saqraruna, but any institution in feet.