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After finishing my work on the huge, yet to be released comic book adaptation of the pre-hispanic Nahua / Mexica " LEGEND OF THE FIVE SUNS" cosmogonic myth (also including other myths from Central Mexico), I took some "vacation time" ~around 1 week or two - to work on sketches which I previously made during last year's INKtober. They're mostly inspired by original stuff I used to draw and write as a 9-10 years old back in 2004, and also on extant characters. Some influences are blatantly visible (like those from the Rockman X game series' "Maverick" designs, or some elements from ATLUS' Shin Megami Tensei Persona series), others are more smooth. That said, they're also part of an original story split between the future and contemporary times, in which these are the futuristic counterparts of the main characters, from the "present" (which was set in 2004-2005). The future was originally meant to be sometime in 21XX, but in this new version of the story, it comes much closer.

   In this future, where humanity has turned into cyborgs, and mass extinctions happened on Earth - but mortality, in some ways, has been overcome by a transhumanist recycling of every "unit" that dies, in a complicated, fully automated system interpreted by some as an "underworld", a "consciousness management machine" or "karma machine" - the Earth is mainly split by two warring factions, the city of NEO ALEXANDRIA and THE RESISTANCE. The city of Neo Alexandria is humanity's last bastion, ruled by Anna Philopator, a top notch cyborg envisioned and created by Archibald Graham, the interdimensional magician, entrepeneur and traveller who broke the barrier of sleep, space and time, and who acquired a Silver Key. This most wise and wicked cheater has become a "time criminal" (independent time travellers or time manipulating magicians who often get the wrong attention of the interdimensional group of time enforcers known as the " Crossbills") but also one of the main universal forces, who believes to have understood the logic of chaos and mastered it. Eventually, even though not a Crossbill, Archibald managed to make peace with them and let his plans go smoothly. The existence of Neo-Alexandria, what he calls the Golden City, also depends on his exploits in other dimensions, and he considers it to be the perfect dimension, one where his creation rules all, envisioning perfect bliss, balance and oneness. Archibald Graham, in this dimension, is a cyborg himself - one often known as The No Fayan Cyborg - and in other dimensions, including the present, he's Anna's father.

    The Resistance opposes Anna's rule, and lead their group to fight for the destabilization of Anna's imposed control and automation over cyborgs. They may not know exactly how things used to be before the "synchronization", but believe that the sentient beings could exist for their own purposes before. Outnumbered and often outsmarted, the Resistance is resilient, despite sometimes foolish, but their decision to stand - which has costed them their lives many times - has begun a larger quest which exposed them to the nature of things, some most hidden, like the "Underworld" which recycle them. There's more than one underworld, though - there's Duat, overseen by the Egyptian Gods who have often helped the No Fayan faction, which Archibald is part of for some time. There's also the three judges of Hades, who are Minos, Aeacus and Rhadamanthus, who have supported the Resistance for long even before their formation. The Resistance, however, isn't by far the only threat to Neo Alexandria, and some common enemies are known to have sponsored the Resistance a couple of times. One of such enemies is the intergalactic, sadistic SPECTRO Organization, whose eponymous leader aims to either turn Anna to his side, or create a twisted copy of her. This is Plasmaex, who used to infiltrate Neo Aexandria for a while, and earning Anna's trust, becoming her vizier, before her plans were revealed and she was expelled. SPECTRO is a vicious and manipulative, immortal Alien A.I who wants to convert Earth into a fully automated mass destruction weapon inhabited by androids, thus reducing all sentient life to machines he can easily read. Biased views from the Resistance could assume his goals don't differ greatly from Anna's own, though Anna and her father naturally know a lot more about sentient beings than SPECTRO does, and whether they admit it or not, the Resistance has depended a lot on Spectro to live up for this day - even in the concurrent present.

  This is where AZTEK X comes in. This most skilled freedom fighter is the future version of this series (which I used to call as BYDURAK back in 2004)' protagonist, Byduchi, who has returned to lead his past self into a quest to erase this terrible future. That would mean the end of this version of himself, but that was a small price to pay, as in this future, one either serves Archibald or SPECTRO's purposes, and none of them are even the worst part of it - the No Fayan leader, Lapolo, who wants to assure his place as the living image of the NO FAIA Spirit, the ancient God of Chaos, has been pulling the strings of Archibald's plans for a while (Archibald has a pact with the No Faia Spirit, and believes that in understanding and controlling its power he could create an immortal utopia), while SPECTRO has been designing the mass destruction, fully-automated weapon meant to replace Earth and its sentient beings not just out of his damned curiosity and sadism, but also because he was comissioned to do so by TOPA, the spirit of darkness incarnate, who happens to be Byduchi / Aztek X's greatest nemesis.

Like his 14 years old past (present, if you're in 2004/2005) counterpart "Byduchi" (or Nduchi Huitzil Xibil), Aztek X is no-nonsense, and maybe even more than his past self, but the tragedies he had to endure, and the resurrections he had witnessed, realising that while individual sentient life per se may be no big deal (to live is not necessarily good, to live well is preferable, so life has no value on it's own, as its value depends on how it's done, and it never depends solely on the individual), the sense of duty is more important. That duty is to destroy SPECTRO and his minions, his masters, and what's found between. Despite considered somewhat pessimistic, it's his raw faith in humanity that drives him forward. He has a crush on Subcommander Aurelia, and his memories fail to properly distinguish her "pre-synchronization" identity, whether she was Nina Everton, his (nerd-y) childhood crush and classmate, or a high school teacher known for her far-left political activism (the truth is, they're the same, but come from different times and dimensions, despite they got to live in the same time and area for some time, pretty much messing up Byduchi's head).

Like his past self, too, he's a techno-shaman (most cyborgs from his time, whether Neo Alexandria or Resistance, are able to summon "spirit guardians" as weapons), but while his past self is protected by WARP, a biomechanical alien berserker, Aztek X is protected and summons the Kraata (if you're a BIONICLE fan you know where it came from), the ancient creator of the vital substance which empowers the race of reptile humanoids known as the BYDURAKs (now you know where the series name came from). Byduchi is a human able to transform into a super-fast lizard-man known as a Bydurak, so Aztek X naturally has a lizard-inspired "feral form". He's super fast and has acid powers - while his past self has electricity ones. He can also access some wind-related powers because of his associations with a wind god known as Huitzilpopoca (the boss of Warp and Kraata, the true creator of the Byduraks, and a major enemy to Topa).

AZTEK X is known as such because his past self, the series' protagonist, was a "Cebolitic" during his lifetime. In BYDURAK, the cebolitics are a first nations with a chosen people complex who share many characteristics with the real life pre-hispanic Mexica (a.k.a "Aztec") culture. My interest on pre-hispanic american cultures go waaay back. "Byduchi" is a distorted version of Nduchi Huitzil Xibil, from Mexico City (in another continuity, he's from Merida, Yucatán. In yet another, from Guate City, Guatemala), who was raised by parents somewhat obssessed with the Mexica/Nahua pre-hispanic culture, alongside his brother, K'ank'in Huitzil Xibil (later also known as Quinamitl). Their mother is Ñuù Dzahui ("Mixteca") in origin, from Oaxaca, while their father, Balam Ikiem, later a.k.a Ocelot, is a K'iché Maya from Guatemala. Balam's father, Vetlag, is from Xibalba, the underworld according to the K'iché Maya. In this series, the underworld is located originally in nowadays Belize. Nduchi means "green bean" in Mixteca language, and maybe because of that he changed that to Byduchi (that doesn't mean anything in particular... but to him, it means "messenger").

I hope you like it as much as I did producing it!

And don't forget to follow and share my work at:

Behance | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

Description

After finishing my work on the huge, yet to be released comic book adaptation of the pre-hispanic Nahua / Mexica " LEGEND OF THE FIVE SUNS" cosmogonic myth (also including other myths from Central Mexico), I took some "vacation time" ~around 1 week or two - to work on sketches which I previously made during last year's INKtober. They're mostly inspired by original stuff I used to draw and write as a 9-10 years old back in 2004, and also on extant characters. Some influences are blatantly visible (like those from the Rockman X game series' "Maverick" designs, or some elements from ATLUS' Shin Megami Tensei Persona series), others are more smooth. That said, they're also part of an original story split between the future and contemporary times, in which these are the futuristic counterparts of the main characters, from the "present" (which was set in 2004-2005). The future was originally meant to be sometime in 21XX, but in this new version of the story, it comes much closer.

   In this future, where humanity has turned into cyborgs, and mass extinctions happened on Earth - but mortality, in some ways, has been overcome by a transhumanist recycling of every "unit" that dies, in a complicated, fully automated system interpreted by some as an "underworld", a "consciousness management machine" or "karma machine" - the Earth is mainly split by two warring factions, the city of NEO ALEXANDRIA and THE RESISTANCE. The city of Neo Alexandria is humanity's last bastion, ruled by Anna Philopator, a top notch cyborg envisioned and created by Archibald Graham, the interdimensional magician, entrepeneur and traveller who broke the barrier of sleep, space and time, and who acquired a Silver Key. This most wise and wicked cheater has become a "time criminal" (independent time travellers or time manipulating magicians who often get the wrong attention of the interdimensional group of time enforcers known as the " Crossbills") but also one of the main universal forces, who believes to have understood the logic of chaos and mastered it. Eventually, even though not a Crossbill, Archibald managed to make peace with them and let his plans go smoothly. The existence of Neo-Alexandria, what he calls the Golden City, also depends on his exploits in other dimensions, and he considers it to be the perfect dimension, one where his creation rules all, envisioning perfect bliss, balance and oneness. Archibald Graham, in this dimension, is a cyborg himself - one often known as The No Fayan Cyborg - and in other dimensions, including the present, he's Anna's father.

    The Resistance opposes Anna's rule, and lead their group to fight for the destabilization of Anna's imposed control and automation over cyborgs. They may not know exactly how things used to be before the "synchronization", but believe that the sentient beings could exist for their own purposes before. Outnumbered and often outsmarted, the Resistance is resilient, despite sometimes foolish, but their decision to stand - which has costed them their lives many times - has begun a larger quest which exposed them to the nature of things, some most hidden, like the "Underworld" which recycle them. There's more than one underworld, though - there's Duat, overseen by the Egyptian Gods who have often helped the No Fayan faction, which Archibald is part of for some time. There's also the three judges of Hades, who are Minos, Aeacus and Rhadamanthus, who have supported the Resistance for long even before their formation. The Resistance, however, isn't by far the only threat to Neo Alexandria, and some common enemies are known to have sponsored the Resistance a couple of times. One of such enemies is the intergalactic, sadistic SPECTRO Organization, whose eponymous leader aims to either turn Anna to his side, or create a twisted copy of her. This is Plasmaex, who used to infiltrate Neo Aexandria for a while, and earning Anna's trust, becoming her vizier, before her plans were revealed and she was expelled. SPECTRO is a vicious and manipulative, immortal Alien A.I who wants to convert Earth into a fully automated mass destruction weapon inhabited by androids, thus reducing all sentient life to machines he can easily read. Biased views from the Resistance could assume his goals don't differ greatly from Anna's own, though Anna and her father naturally know a lot more about sentient beings than SPECTRO does, and whether they admit it or not, the Resistance has depended a lot on Spectro to live up for this day - even in the concurrent present.

  This is where AZTEK X comes in. This most skilled freedom fighter is the future version of this series (which I used to call as BYDURAK back in 2004)' protagonist, Byduchi, who has returned to lead his past self into a quest to erase this terrible future. That would mean the end of this version of himself, but that was a small price to pay, as in this future, one either serves Archibald or SPECTRO's purposes, and none of them are even the worst part of it - the No Fayan leader, Lapolo, who wants to assure his place as the living image of the NO FAIA Spirit, the ancient God of Chaos, has been pulling the strings of Archibald's plans for a while (Archibald has a pact with the No Faia Spirit, and believes that in understanding and controlling its power he could create an immortal utopia), while SPECTRO has been designing the mass destruction, fully-automated weapon meant to replace Earth and its sentient beings not just out of his damned curiosity and sadism, but also because he was comissioned to do so by TOPA, the spirit of darkness incarnate, who happens to be Byduchi / Aztek X's greatest nemesis.

Like his 14 years old past (present, if you're in 2004/2005) counterpart "Byduchi" (or Nduchi Huitzil Xibil), Aztek X is no-nonsense, and maybe even more than his past self, but the tragedies he had to endure, and the resurrections he had witnessed, realising that while individual sentient life per se may be no big deal (to live is not necessarily good, to live well is preferable, so life has no value on it's own, as its value depends on how it's done, and it never depends solely on the individual), the sense of duty is more important. That duty is to destroy SPECTRO and his minions, his masters, and what's found between. Despite considered somewhat pessimistic, it's his raw faith in humanity that drives him forward. He has a crush on Subcommander Aurelia, and his memories fail to properly distinguish her "pre-synchronization" identity, whether she was Nina Everton, his (nerd-y) childhood crush and classmate, or a high school teacher known for her far-left political activism (the truth is, they're the same, but come from different times and dimensions, despite they got to live in the same time and area for some time, pretty much messing up Byduchi's head).

Like his past self, too, he's a techno-shaman (most cyborgs from his time, whether Neo Alexandria or Resistance, are able to summon "spirit guardians" as weapons), but while his past self is protected by WARP, a biomechanical alien berserker, Aztek X is protected and summons the Kraata (if you're a BIONICLE fan you know where it came from), the ancient creator of the vital substance which empowers the race of reptile humanoids known as the BYDURAKs (now you know where the series name came from). Byduchi is a human able to transform into a super-fast lizard-man known as a Bydurak, so Aztek X naturally has a lizard-inspired "feral form". He's super fast and has acid powers - while his past self has electricity ones. He can also access some wind-related powers because of his associations with a wind god known as Huitzilpopoca (the boss of Warp and Kraata, the true creator of the Byduraks, and a major enemy to Topa).

AZTEK X is known as such because his past self, the series' protagonist, was a "Cebolitic" during his lifetime. In BYDURAK, the cebolitics are a first nations with a chosen people complex who share many characteristics with the real life pre-hispanic Mexica (a.k.a "Aztec") culture. My interest on pre-hispanic american cultures go waaay back. "Byduchi" is a distorted version of Nduchi Huitzil Xibil, from Mexico City (in another continuity, he's from Merida, Yucatán. In yet another, from Guate City, Guatemala), who was raised by parents somewhat obssessed with the Mexica/Nahua pre-hispanic culture, alongside his brother, K'ank'in Huitzil Xibil (later also known as Quinamitl). Their mother is Ñuù Dzahui ("Mixteca") in origin, from Oaxaca, while their father, Balam Ikiem, later a.k.a Ocelot, is a K'iché Maya from Guatemala. Balam's father, Vetlag, is from Xibalba, the underworld according to the K'iché Maya. In this series, the underworld is located originally in nowadays Belize. Nduchi means "green bean" in Mixteca language, and maybe because of that he changed that to Byduchi (that doesn't mean anything in particular... but to him, it means "messenger").

I hope you like it as much as I did producing it!

And don't forget to follow and share my work at:

Behance | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter