Chapter 2

Magos Harvul Cogblade was tired. Not physically but mentally. All-day he had been dealing with the one thing that has been the bane of mankind for tens of thousands of years, paperwork. After his grueling 14 hour shift of dealing with requisitions and supply requests, he decided to take a nice walk in some lesser-used tunnels below the manufactorium. He was more than grateful to the Omnissiah for allowing him to work on Holy Mars for the first time in his life but he wished to do something greater. He was secretly hoping to work with some of the more advanced technology to learn how it works. Then secretly come up with improvements for his own augmentations and designs. Heresy to many of his peers, he knew that, but he couldn't help himself.

As he was along his walk, passing ancient monuments to the great priest of the past, he heard something slam down onto metal plating close by. Harvul made his way towards the sound with worry that a shrine or monument may have broken. As he got close Harvul heard a high pitch voice shout out in a language he could not immediately comprehend. Though after a moment of running through translators, it came up as an ancient Terran dialect not used in the known galaxy for at least 20,000 years. When he got close and rounded a corner, he stopped in shock, not expecting to see what he did. There in front of him was a child, a child that seemed to come from nowhere. Without thinking of what language he was speaking, Harvul spoke in High Gothic only 2 words, "A child?" before the child crumpled to the ground.

Seeing the child drop down to the deck, Harvul rushed forward and scooped him up, noting he was malnourished and seemed to be coming down with a fever. Harvul would quickly rush back to his own private quarters and private sterile room for when he dealt with his own augmentations.

The Boy woke again, confused. He didn't know where he was, what he last remembered, or why he felt better than he had in a long time. In fact, he couldn't even remember his name. He opened his bleary eyes and immediately closed them again. Too bright. Far too bright for his liking and he could only grunt in discomfort at the light in his eyes. He rolled over unto his left and raised his right hand to his face covering his eyes. It was then he noticed something on his left arm. At the top of his forearm was a tube connected to a strange machine that he didn't recognize.

Reaching with his other hand, Harry was about to pull out the tube when he heard a stern voice say, "Do not touch that, it is feeding you." Quickly looking over to where the voice was, Harry shrieked in fear. He couldn't remember much but did remember the monster he saw. He tried to back up on the bed he was laying on but seeing he couldn't, Harry pulled his knees to his chest and curled into a ball, shouting for the monster to get away from him. He was in too much shock to even realize he was no longer speaking English.

Magos Cogblade was grateful for a few things that day. First of all, his superior had notified him over the noosphere that he no longer needed to deal with paperwork. A junior adept that had recently finished some training on the matter was being assigned to it and Harvul was free to deal with his own projects for the rest of the week. The other was his unknown patient was recovering remarkably fast. However, this patient was also a slight annoyance in addition to being a major intrigue. He began thinking of the child as Harvul walked back to his quarters.

The reason for the annoyance was that Magos Cogblade was a Genator dealing with wounds of the local populace of Mars and rooting out mutation. Due to this, he had access to a database holding DNA samples for the entire population of Mars and its moon. And the child, whom his scans and test had determined was no more than 3 standard Terran years old, was not in there. This child was not from the Martian populace and simply came out of nowhere.

The intrigue came from the fact that the child had survived extreme infections that set in shortly after he was found, because of this Harvul had come to call the boy Vitaetus. Another factor to the name was that the child had a nearly clean genome. Of the tens of thousands of samples the Magos had tested in his long life, there had always been slight mutation due to warp and radiation exposure or mutation from The Old Night some 15,000 years ago. But Vitaetus was different, he was almost perfectly clean. The only mutation that could be found was one making the child a Psyker, albeit a weak one by most standards, but a Psyker nonetheless.

Walking into his quarters, Harvul went to look over his patient as he had every day for the last week only to see Vitaetus on his side, reaching up to pull the intravenous cord out of his arm. Rushing forward, Harvul spoke in a Stern voice "Do not touch that, it is feeding you." After saying that, the child looked at him before shaking and curling into a ball calling Harvul a monster and ordering him to get away. Well, at least the language implant was working. Though it would need to be replaced every couple of years as Vitaetus grows, at least until his head is fully grown and the implant can simply be placed in his skull.

Harry was scared. He was in a bright room at a place he didn't know and the monster was back to get him. He just wanted to go back home, wherever home was. Harry heard the monster walk towards him while speaking. "Monster? I am no monster, merely someone wishing to help you."

Harry didn't say anything or turn to look, causing the other being in the room with him to sigh before speaking once more with a calm tone. "Please, little one, I wish to help you. My name is Magos Harvul Cogblade, I found you down in some dark tunnels. You were underweight and your head was wounded badly, I did not spend the last week saving you to only be ignored." a pause, Harvul seemed to sigh in frustration, though it was hard to tell, "Please look at me. I know I may look scary to you but I promise I won't hurt you." After a minute, Harry would sit up and look over at Harvul. Harry decided to trust him, after all, he promised he wouldn't hurt Harry and adults would never break their promises, right?

Unseen to Harry, Harvul smiled when he sat up and spoke again with a soft voice, "Thank you little one. Tell me, do you understand me? I want to make sure the implant is working properly.' Harry would have a look of confusion at the word implant, he was not sure what it meant but nodded hone the less, he could understand the mon- understand Harvul now.

Harvul nodded, glad they could understand each other and he had already seen the little boy speak. "That is good, when I found you, you were speaking an ancient dead language. Now, do you remember your name, do you know where you are?"

Harry, Still clutching his knees but looking at Harvul shook his head, he couldn't remember much. Knowing that the Magos wanted him to speak and not wanting to anger him, Harry said quietly, "N-no sir, I don't remember. I want to go home, but I don't know where home is." Harry started to sob before his head shot up and looked into Harvuls hood where his head would be, only seeing glowing green and blue lights. "Wait, how do I know how to talk to you and know what you are saying? Are we not speaking English?"

Harry would see the Magos head nod under his robe at his question, seemingly pleased Harry noticed the language difference. "A good question and I am glad you noticed but we shall get to that in time. But first, let's start with something important. A name, since you do not seem to know yours." Harry perked up at that, "I have been calling you Vitaetus due to you getting very sick after I found you. You survived, obviously, but it has only been a week and you have made tremendous progress. Thus, I feel a name with etymological roots in life fit. How does that sound to you? And the proper way to address me would be with Magos not 'sir,' it is important to remember that for the future."

Harry, now Vitaetus would think for a moment before nodding with a smile on his face. "I love it. Does that mean you'll be my new dad, will I be Vitartus Cogblade? It is a cool name si-..." After a second he would quickly finish with "Magos, I mean. It is a cool name Magos."

This caused Harvul to stop and stare at the boy now named Vitaetus. He had never considered what to do after the child was up and about, though he had always wanted a protégé to teach all his knowledge to. He would nod to Vitaetus after thinking it over, would walk to Vitaetus and respond with "If you wish for me to be your parental figure I will gladly accept. I did wish to be a mentor at some point, and you should do. Do you have any questions?"

Harry, now Vitaetus, got out of the bed after Magos Harvul answered that he would be Vitaetus' new dad and went to hug his legs, recoiling slightly at how hard and cold they were. He looked up to ask why when he saw a mechadendrite extend from under the mangos robe and grab the IV drip going into his arm. His eyes would go wide as he reached up to try and grab it while saying "Whoa, what is that?" Looking back at the darkened hood he asked more "What are you? Where are we and you never said why I can understand you?"

Magos Harvul would chuckle at the barrage of questions. He had heard menial workers talking about their kids asking a lot of questions at this age but never thought he would experience it himself. He would start to answer the questions for little Vitaetus. "Well Vitaetus, it is part of me. Like an extra arm of sorts called a mechadendrite. I have four of them in fact. One day you may have your own. As for what I am, well I am a human, like yourself but more specifically I am a Magos biologist of the Adeptus Mechanicus, something that will take a lot longer to explain later on. As for how we can talk, as I said you have a new implant in your head on the back-left side" he watched Vitaetus reach up to the back right of his head "No, the other side, that's the right. Regardless, when I found you, you must have hit your head because your brain was damaged and I had to augment the part used for comprehending and speaking languages. It will take a few years for you to fully be able to comprehend the languages installed in the augment, but you will understand in time. And not to worry, your original language, English you called it, is still in your brain somewhere but putting two new languages in your head would have pushed it down."

Vitaetus was confused about the explanation for how they can talk, his new dad used a lot of big words he didn't know. But Vitaetus understood just enough that he had hurt his head and the Magos somehow put something hard and metal in his head that allowed them to talk to each other and that's all that mattered to the young child. He then felt Harvul pick him up and start to walk out of the sterile room and into the main chamber of his private quarters.

With him being higher, Vitaetus would try to take off the Magos hood to see his face but was stopped by Harvul gently grabbing his hand and saying "Trust me, You do not wish to see under my hood at this time. Eventually but not now. Now though you should be looking at the window."

Vitaetus would turn his head with confusion before gasping in surprise at what he saw. Out the window was a sight he had never imagined in his short life. He seemed to be nearly a mile in the air in some sort of tower. There were various crafts flying around hauling minerals, people and products around. Below there were great furnaces and in the distance, he could barely make out red sands down below. It was a sight no words could do wonder and Vitaetus could only stare as Magos Harvul spoke. "Welcome Vitaetus to the Holy Forge World of Mars. Home of the Cult Mechanicus and Adeptus Mechanicus, a planet second to no other forge world. A planet second only to the Throne World of Holy Terra. Welcome to the start of your new life."

And there is chapter two folks, I hope you enjoyed. I'd like to thank Jamius for his help editing and giving ideas. I would also like to say thank you to everyone who has read and left reviews. It is awesome to see so many people thinking it is a cool and interesting idea. Over 800 views and 600 visitors in just a week as well as 74 fallowers. Thank you all so much. I hope you find the pacing of the second chapter better.

I would like to say this story is not going to be a weekly update though. My plan is to update it after it feels like a proper amount of time has passed between chapters. Sometimes that may be a week, others 2 weeks or a month. Just all depends on how i feel really.

In response to the review by merendinoemiliano- I do not plan on bashing unless it makes sense in terms of the characters and story. Such as calling out Dumbledore for lying or Fudge for being a shitty leader. This is no way going to be a bashing fic though.