Vicente Sixx - Father of the Raptors: With the Avenger's return to Deliverance, work on rebuilding the Raven Guard Legion could truly begin. Corax had wisely decided to keep the project a secret and had therefor decided not to conduct the experiment in the more secure but also far more obvious location that was the Ravenspire, but in a quite isolated training facility known as Ravendelve.Located deep within the radwastes of Kiavahr, its isolation would be of no consequence as unknown to the Raven Guard, other forces were already well aware of the XIX primarch's intent. As the Legion's new Chief Apothecary, Vicente Sixx was naturally informed of the project's exstence and brought in, although in truth his contributions in this first stage would be modest: while Corax used his psychically-imprinted knowledge on the undifferentiated primarch gene-seed to unravel its secrets, its application fell to Orlandriaz. Still lacking confidence in his medicae abilities, Sixx was all too happy this was to be the case and placed himself in the role of liaison between the enthusiastic magos and Legion command.Despite the extensive amount of data retrieved from the Emperor's laboratory, initial progress was slow, mainly due to the complexity of the primarch gene-template. The Emperor and His Biotechnical Division had engineered the Legiones Astartes and even the Legio Custodes by selecting different strands of genetic materiel, but the possible permutations numbered in the millions and would have taken standard years to investigate. To add to this difficulty, a vigorous debate had erupted between Sixx and Orlandriaz, with the Martian magos suggesting that the XIX Legion would best be rebuilt by creating an entirely new gene-seed from scratch rather than trying to improve the Raven Guard's existing gene-seed.If that was to be the case, the Raven Guard's number could quickly be swelled by the use of cloning techniques that would allow the Legion to quickly recover from its losses. Corax, however, quickly resolved the matter, dismissing the use of cloning techniques as an ultimate resort and using his Emperor-given knowledge to narrow down the number of genetic-strands that would need to be examined before the implantation of the first altered gene-seed.The first test-subjects were however not to be Human, and the first batch of tests were thus conducted on animals which were kept in the lower levels of Ravendelve. During this time, Sixx grew increasingly into his new role as Chief Apothecary, implanting the modified gene-seed into the test subjects and generally keeping the over-ambitious ardours of Orlandriaz in check.Overseeing the procedures and protocols of gene-seed implantation in Ravendelve led the magos to devise a mean to increase productivity by at least ten percent, whereas as a staunch traditionalist born of Deliverance, Vicente Sixx had to dissuade him from enacting his plans. With the primarch pressing for results, Orlandriaz began pressuring Sixx and Legion command to bring in the Kiavahrian Mechanicum to use its vastly superior resources to further the project, a step from which Sixx always had to discourage him, for the secrecy of their current endeavours had to be maintained.However the animal tests proved disastrous. Most of the test subjects had heavily mutated under the influence of the primarch gene-seed, growing over-sized slabs of muscles, bony protusions and even in some cases additional limbs. Most had become true aberrations, including a bicephalic giant snake with a barbed tail, and a green mouse the size of a dog with the claws of a wolf. Yet amongst this cavalcade of horrors a few successes had been attained: perfect specimens, healthy and strong which had matured from infancy to adulthood in less than forty solar hours.Based on the analysis of these subjects, Sixx and Orlandriaz established that it would only take seventy to eighty solar hours to grow a boy into a Legionary. While encouraging, these results did not satisfy Corax, who ordered animal-testing stopped while simultaneously requiring Sixx and Orlandriaz to increase the pace of their research. With something approaching relief, Sixx set out to euthanise the first test subjects while resolving to return to base cell-analysis.Orlandriaz was confident that he would be able to eliminate some of the most mutagenic gene-strands by this step, which was fortunate as Sixx would never risk the life of a Human by implanting anything less than a perfect genetic template.He was quite sure that Commander Branne would also never allow it, and Corax's appointed messenger, Commander Agapito, also seemed to validate his decision. He understood that the primarch wanted to press the matter and return his Legion to the battlefield as quickly as possible, but while he was still in charge of the implantation procedures, Sixx would never risk the recruits' lives.However Sixx's misgivings were only short-lived. Thanks to the increasing involvement of Corax the work on the new gene-seed quickly progressed until eventually Orlandriaz deemed it safe enough for its first Human implantations. Ten recruits were selected to be the first to receive the new gene-seed and thus become the first of the new advanced Astartes that they were calling "Raptors." To limit the risk of rampant cell reproduction, the candidates were put in a short-lived cryobiotic state, for the accelerated cell-growth put the recruits' bodies under heavy metabolic stress.In stark contrast to the previous generations of Raven Guard, the Raptors would be grown with every organ and their valuable Progenoid Glands fully developed. Despite their precautionary measures, one of the candidates died as the rapid growth of his organic tissues led to complications with an undetected minute heart defect.Despite this first casualty, for which Sixx secretly blamed Orlandriaz's haste, the initial nine Raptors, or the "First Nine" as they would soon be called, were all perfect specimens of Legionaries. With the introduction of a new, refined version of the gene-seed that would cure its host from any previous physical weakness, the numbers of potential new recruits for the XIX Legion would be near limitless.