Arturo “The Spicy Mountain” Serrano, The Pepper Prepper (1957-Present)

Born to Drs. Cris Johnson Serrano and Salomé Celeste Serrano, Arturo Serrano was the product of genetic experimentation to create a hybrid between the Capsicum plant family and Homo sapiens sapiens. Previous experiments had been conducted by the Serranos at the Colombian Institute for Genetic Research (CIGR) in Bogotá using earlier relatives of Homo sapiens sapiens combined with genetics from the Serrano family’s proprietary pepper (see serrano pepper); some of these nominally succeeded but were later seen as abject failures (see Ted Cruz). Arturo was the first successful combination of human and habanero, exhibiting an extraordinary ability to regenerate limbs and to excrete oils containing a heat level of 1.5 billion Scoville heat units – a rating so high it can burn human flesh.

For most of his youth, Arturo was kept away from the general public at a secure CIGR facility. Until he learned to control his secretions, his parents had to use gloves when interacting with him, especially after an incident with a less-than-scrupulous employee whose hands and eyes were burned away after not observing safety protocols. After several years of careful training, Arturo was able to successfully control his secretions at age 9 and was granted greater access to public spaces. However, the Serranos were fearful that their experimentation would be discovered and shut down by international authorities – especially the fledgling U.N. Genetic Research Task Force (GRTF) formed in 1965); as such, they opted to limit his exposure by keeping him out of public school and only allowing supervised public visits until his 18th birthday.

Sometime in 1977, a combination of political instability in Colombia, urban insurgencies echoing M-19, and a more aggressive U.N. GRTF led to the raid of the CIGR facility by Colombian authorities and the imprisonment of the Serranos for violation of international law. Arturo, a technical product of illegal experimentation, was granted amnesty in South Carolina under what one U.N. official referred to as “a rule of mercy and fairness.” Arturo, however, quickly realized that the U.N.’s intention was to hide him from the general public and sought to buy his silence. Later information would reveal that the Serranos’ research had been procured by GRTF members and moved to a secure facility for implementation (see the GRTF Scandal of 2025).

After graduating from the University of South Carolina in 1983 with a degree in history, he began to hatch the affectionally titled (by social media users) “Pepper Prepper” plan, which contained a set of five steps for extracting oneself from the grid and re-emerging anonymously. Roughly, these included:

1. Fake your death by being “eaten by alligators in Florida”
2. Live off the grid in Costa Rica for five years
3. Grow a beard without a curly mustache
4. Once properly forgotten, return to any city other than the one you last lived in
5. Use a name nobody would suspect as being an alias

In 1984, Arturo disappeared, having been eaten by alligators in Florida, and reappeared in Paris, France in 1989 as Emilio Paprika Bouchard, where he built a medicinal herbs business before moving to Los Angeles, California to take Bouchard’s Herbal Medicines and Cat Massage Parlor global.

For the next 30 years, Arturo managed his herbal business by day and used his unique regenerative and secretive abilities to fight crime by night, taking on the name “The Spicy Mountain” during what is now known as the Emergent Period of Global Heroism (approximately 1987-2019). The specifics of Arturo’s exploits are up to speculation. We do know that he targeted the Enclave of the Secret, an organization dedicated to continuing illegal genetic research on humans with tacit approval of multiple members of the U.N., and successfully exposed the U.N. GRTF’s records to a Washington Post report, which led to the arrest of 18 officials and a global inquiry between 2025 and 2027.

Sometime in 2030, Arturo (as Emilio) disappeared again, leaving behind a computer database containing details about his past and over 700 hours of recordings of philosophy, creative fiction, and exposés on politicians, criminal organizations, and the true biography of David Bowie. It is believed by his fans that Arturo returned to Colombia, though no evidence yet exists to confirm this belief.