Las Plagas
The Las Plagas, Spanish for, "the Plagues", are a race of parasitic, insectoid organisms were sealed beneath the Earth by the Salazar Castellan eight generations ago. The Las Plagas are unique among parasites, as they modify the behavior of their hosts and take total control over them. Typically, the Plagas will integrate themselves into a human being by nesting between the lower rib cage and spinal cord, hatching and slowly sending spores throughout the body, feeding off it more and more until the host's life signs fade and it takes total control over the metabolism. Plaga parasites, like bacteria, can go into a near-microscopic spore form. The process through which they undergo this change is unknown, and it is possible that instead their eggs are encased in spores. Plagas are hypersensitive to light, and will die if exposed to a bright flash. Developing Plagas are unable to survive outside the body, but can live freely for short periods of time in the environment once fully developed. Once a Plaga egg hatches, it is nearly impossible to remove from the body, thanks to the efforts of a genetics program run under Lord Osmund Saddler with the help of researchers such as Luis Sera. The only way to remove a newly-developing Plaga is with the help of a radical radiation-surgery. The Plagas were unearthed by Ramon Salazar, the eight Castellan of his region in a remote Spanish area. Salazar was swayed by Osmund Saddler, leader of the Los Illuminados, who had came and preached to the rural Spanish village Salazar presided over, quickly gaining the faith and power of his followers, and convincing Salazar to atone for the sins of his fathers, who had originally persecuted the Los Illuminados and stripped them of their power, by restoring the religion and digging up the Plagas. Once the Villagers dug into the Plaga burial site, they only found fossils. But after a week or two, they began a rapid behavioral change. They had inhaled the Plaga spores from the burial site, and after a bloody skirmish with the uninfected Villagers, rose to supremacy in the region. Osmund Saddler and his chief followers, Ramon Salazar and Village Chief Bitores Mendez seem to have a degree of control of the Plagas within their body, but it not apparent just how much. It is also unknown whether Saddler acts of his own motives, or of the parasites themselves. The Plagas can infect host organisms other than humans - suitable others are insects and feral wolves, which rapidly mutate under Plaga control. Several experiments with them resulted in creatures called, "The Regenerators", which seem to be horribly twisted, corpse-like creatures that house multiple parasites and have a high enough metabolism to regenerate lost body parts within seconds, and the Berdugos, tall, insect-like humanoids with unsurpassed physical prowess and hunting intelligence. Recently, Albert Wesker, former chief researcher of Umbrella Corperation, sent agents Ada Wong and Jack Krauser to seize a sample of the Las Plagas. Krauser, despite enhancement via what appears to be a fusion of T-Virus infection and Plaga parasitism, was killed by Leon Kennedy, but Ada managed to retrieve the sample, which Wesker promises to use in unknown ways to revive Umbrella.
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