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You know who I am. You've heard of me. You've probably seen my work. I'm quite famous with the federales on the Mexican border after all. But you don't know the man who made the mask. 

This is the story of how I painted the Artistomancer. 

[b][u]Chapter 1 - The Pledge [/u][/b]

All good things begin with a mother and a father. I was born in a family of five sons and two sisters. My parents married each other out of necessity at first, not love. That was what Mama accidentally told me when she fixed up a scrape I got from attempting to climb the border wall. I guess, things change over time. Mama was a nurse who worked in the slums. Papa, on the other hand, was a travelling bicycle mechanic who tried to escape the 2010 coup de'tat in Sao Paulo. It's hard to believe that the conditions in Sao Paulo were worst than Juarez. 

Oh, Juarez? The wall was a constant across. Juarez was a life of living on the margins.  What can I say about Juarez that hasn't been blasted and smeared across every news outlet in North America? The only kind thing I can say about Juarez is that if you ignore the corruption, cooperate with the cartels and keep your nose clean of crime; then, you can make a decent living. 

 When my papa gave me my first set of cheap color pencils as my 10th birthday gift, I was initially angry. Looking back, I wouldn't have traded it for anything else in the world. I began to draw. I drawed instead of doing homework at school. I stained my handprints on the walls. I made chalk drawings on the pavements. I painted the pottery my mom brought home. When I didn't have enough money to buy dollar-store chalk or spray paint, I mashed cactus juices together and mixed crayons with water. My inspirations were not Leonardo Da Vinci or Michaleangelo but the street artists and holo-taggers of Mexico. 

Some discover theyNo, it wasn't some freak accident nor was I experimented in one of those corporate laboratories. For me, it was desperation that led me to discovering my powers. One of the waterlines . The corporations barred any news of it getting out to the NGO's, leaving thousands of us to die from dehydration in the slums. 

That was my first art-piece. An oasis in my desert. 

Eventually, I caught the attention of. I was young, foolish and naive back then. I thought I could outsmart the Los Diablos. However, they were stringing me along, treating me like a tool. 

I did the only thing my thirteen year old mine thought was the smart move. I tried to resurrect them, bring them back to life...

Well, there's a reason why no one dares to speak the name of the Los Diablos anymore in Juarez.

That's when I met Hex. 

[b][u]Chapter 2 - The Turn [/u][/b]

So, when the corporations tried to silence me, I struck out on my own. I saw that we were always playing into the hands of the corpos, the fat cats, the men who controlled the world and made us play their cops and robbers games. 

[b][u]Chapter 3 - The Prestige[/u][/b]

I joined The Third Rail. 

Hex says an apocalypse is coming for us all. 

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