Kane: Nah, she doesn't have a grudge, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Regarding the Eldar and elves, I have a few ideas running in my head, but haven't planned out anything concrete yet. Oh and the book? That will be revealed eventually…hehe…

Guest: I put one in there just for you, Thanks for the idea! :)

Lost Guy: I'm sure you'll enjoy the rest of the story then, as All is Dust!

Edit 1: fixed an issue with space marine anatomy. Thanks for the heads up HighZealot

Disclaimer: I do not own Familiar of Zero, Warhammer 40,000, or anything related or pertaining to those universes.

Chapter 6: A Fair Fight…Kinda

Fouquet the Sculptor had her eyes set on the 'Staff of Destruction' for quite some time now, and it was extremely frustrating to know that it was locked away in the very building that she worked in as her alternate persona: Miss Longueville. Her opportunity seemed to come at last though, as the guards that were normally stationed around the vault were pulled off to provide additional security for the visiting princess.

Unfortunately, her frustration returned as she ran out of time trying to break through the magic barrier surrounding the door, and she was forced to revert to her Plan B, which was a lot more…forceful…to say the least.

However, even the titanic golem she summoned couldn't even seem to break through the fortress wall as it slammed its stone fist straight into it repeatedly, her anger rising rapidly as nothing seemed to work out in her favor. She seemed to finally snap when suddenly a figure appeared and caught her in the act of robbery. That was the last straw.

It was that familiar that everyone was talking about, the one Louise had summoned. She had heard rumors of his power and how he bested one of the best student mages in the school, as word got around through the faculty rather quickly. But looking upon him from so high up, he seemed like just a small insect waiting to be crushed under the stone foot of her golem; stomped into nothing but dust. She was going to take out all her frustration and rage on that poor, lowly, familiar.

"Kill him," she commanded with little emotion. The beast obeyed.

Glacius had narrowly avoided the first swing of its palm as it tried to crush him, jumping off to the side with Louise still on him. His master was now tucked away from the fight and he was in a full sprint straight at the monstrosity, his chainsword powered up and awaiting the order to bring death upon his enemies. It never let him down before, and he was positive he could cut through the rocks with ease. Maybe a little too overconfident perhaps?

He was forced to jump and roll forward as the foot of the golem came down from above, leaving an impact crater in the area he was just in. He spun around quickly before the golem could raise its foot back up and he leaped upwards to grab onto the side of its lower leg, his chainsword providing a stable anchor inside the beast. The creature didn't utter a single noise, as pain was a completely foreign concept to it. There was only the satisfaction of its master that had to be fulfilled, nothing more. Plus rocks don't have feelings. Duh.

"Errgh!" Glacius grunted in irritation as the golem began shaking its leg wildly to throw him off. This just pissed off the chaos marine even further, as he used his free hand to punch straight through the rock and grip the inside to provide more support. If it wasn't for his Lyman's Ear implant, then he would be hopelessly dizzy and probably fall off only to be crushed to a puddle of gore. A normal human would not have survived for this long. It seemed as if the insane shaking would never end until the world itself was sundered, but he couldn't just stay immobile, as the creature would soon come up with another way to throw him off and kill him violently. Time was not on his side, and he had to keep moving upwards.

"Damnit..." the thief hissed. This was bad. Fouquet didn't have time for a fight, as she just assumed the familiar would be crushed and that would be the end of it. But he was putting up a struggle, and time was running out. It would only be a matter of moments before backup arrived, as this was getting kinda noisy.

Nearby...

Princess Henrietta was worried. Louise wasn't anywhere to be found around the stage, but after asking around, one of the guards told her that Louise's familiar was bringing her back to her room after she had apparently fallen unconscious. She was a little relieved, but that feeling ended quickly as a huge crashing sound was heard around on the other side of the campus; right where Louise's quarters were located. She took off without hesitation, as any loyal friend would do for a companion in potential danger.

"Princess! Wait!" one the guards shouted as they chased after her.

"Something's wrong! Follow me!" she shouted back, her command presence coming to life. She may have been young and kind, but when quick action needed to be taken, she knew what to do.

The other students were in disarray from the frightening noise, but they were still curious about what was going on, as a number of them followed the royal party in a gaggle. Among them were Guiche, Kirche, and the rest of the usual gang. Except for Tabitha…where was she?

As Henrietta rounded the corner, her eyes grew in shock as the battle unfolded before her. She could see the colossal golem flailing its body around and slamming into the academy, like it was trying desperately to get something off of it. As it twisted around for a full view, she could then see Louise's familiar attached on the hip of it, his sword and fist embedded into the stone body. The man was slowly climbing his way up, his own massive body dwarfed by the golem's immense presence. She surveyed the rest of the area rapidly and spotted Louise's unconscious body off in a corner away from the combat.

Henrietta rushed over to her friend, adrenaline rushing through her body as the students who had been following began shouting and screaming at the giant before them.

"Louise! Louise!" Henrietta cried as she tried to wake up her friend in vain. Another crashing noise interrupted her as broken pebbles from the stone rained down from high above, cutting her face and exquisite clothes. They didn't bother her at all though, as her unconscious friend was the number one thing on her mind. Suddenly, the sun itself seemed to darken as something blocked it out above her. She looked up in surprise, and the sight before her prompted a scream.

Fouquet's golem managed to grab the dark astartes and slam him into the wall at full speed, causing the arm of the golem itself to shatter in the impact. It was no matter though, as she used her magic to quickly rebuild it. The time to run was now…but what's this? Was that…the princess down there!? She knew that in the master plan, having the princess gone would only make things easier later. This opportunity was too damn good to pass up, and she gave the golem a command that would change the future of Tristain forever.

Glacius was pretty bruised, but that was only what it felt like. He probably had broken something at the bare minimum from the impact, as he was now on the ground and buried in stone. It didn't take too much effort to push all of it off thanks to his enhanced strength, and he dusted himself off, readying the next strike. Wait, where the hell was that golem going? Oh no…

The golem had its foot raised over the area that he had placed Louise in, readying itself to smash his master. To make matters worse, the princess was over there too! Damnit, they couldn't die here, he needed them! If the princess was killed, then what kind of person would take over? Probably someone not so nice and open-minded. With that thought being his only motivation, he sprinted faster than he had ever done before in his entire combat career. This stupid pile of rocks wasn't going to ruin his plans and the destiny laid before him, hell no.

"G-Goodbye Louise..." the princess muttered. She knew there was no way she could drag her friend out in time, so her fate was sealed.

Henrietta closed her eyes as she held on tight to her dearest friend, tears streaming down her face as her life flashed before her. It pained her that she would never be able to see her loved ones again, but if there was anyone she wanted by her side at death, it would be Louise. At least she could be thankful for that.

But death had other plans, and he didn't waste his time on those two.

Henrietta opened her eyes at the sound of something grunting in a dark, mechanical voice. She realized that she had not yet departed this world, and when she turned around with Louise in her arms, a noble sight awaited her; Louise's familiar, Glacius, was literally holding back the entire strength of the golem with just two hands. Before she had time to analyze the situation further however, he screamed a command through his helmet's vox.

"G-GET…M-MOVING! GO!"

"Y-you're..."

"Don't worry, I got you ma'am," a new voice announced.

A big guard managed to get to them while Glacius was holding back the strength of the titan and scooped up both the princess and her childhood friend. Henrietta stared over his shoulder in awe at the armored man who had just saved her and her friend's lives.

Crk! Glacius felt something break inside of him from holding back Tzeentch knows how many tons of rock. He was a chaos space marine and had ridiculous amounts of augmented strength behind his muscles and armor, but everyone had their limits. Apparently the weight of the stone golem's foot was his, and he felt his feet slipping behind him slowly. If this kept up he was bound to end up in a body bag, and his struggle for life couldn't be won by conventional power. Craack! There went another important part! There was only one solution. Glacius began muttering dark words to himself as he called upon the twisted warp to aid him once more…

The students who had followed the princess and her guards were in for quite the show, as their opinions of Louise's familiar were already higher after seeing him at the exhibition. But now, they had just witnessed him save the life of not only one of their fellow peers, but of one of the leaders of their great country.

The show was only just beginning however, as Glacius was now holding back the strength of the massive creature with his own two hands, the weight of it threatening to end his life. This was the most unreal thing any of them had ever seen. They never doubted his physical strength before...but wow...

The traitor marine's body was slowly enveloped with blue and purple lightning, the warp coming to life around him once again. It rapidly grew in intensity with his voxed voice that was screaming with hate. One of his hands came off of the stone and twisted around with dark purple energy, the sound unbearable as it rippled through the air. Suddenly, three bolts of purple energy burst out of his hand with rapid speed, twirling upwards and then roaring back down towards the golem's leg. They slammed into it with such impact that the majority of the lower half of the stone monster was vaporized into a massive explosion of purple warp energy, a few bits and pieces of the golem showering the crowd. Without any support, the beast fell to the ground, the shockwave knocking nearly everyone off of their feet.

"WHAAAAAT!?" Fouquet was frightened by what she had just seen. What kind of magic was that familiar using that managed to do that!? She was coughing up dust from the collapse of her golem, but she didn't have time to sit and ponder about the familiar. She quickly rebuilt the golem's legs in order to make her escape, but she was still too slow. She stared in disbelief as the familiar was sprinting across the torso of the golem, the edges of his serrated sword spinning with a god-awful sound.

"Get up! NOW!" she commanded frantically. The golem obeyed as it rose and Glacius nearly fell off completely before he anchored himself into the thing's stomach with his weapon, the ground moving rapidly beneath him as the stone slave marched off of the campus and away from the mass of students and guards.

It was a damn good thing Glacius didn't meet up with Siesta last night; otherwise he wouldn't have known how to use the 'Doombolt' spell. He could feel his insides screaming in agony, but he had to push on. This damn thing would come back if he didn't kill it now, and next time it would have new tricks and even more information on how to end his existence. Glacius gritted his teeth as he continued to climb upwards towards the top of the behemoth, each push more painful than the last. The eyes of the chaos marine were fixed on the hooded woman standing on the creature's shoulder, as she was obviously in command of the beast. His entire mind, body, and soul was now bent on murdering her, and he would not rest until she was nothing but a broken corpse before him.

Fouquet was trying to do too many things at once. First of all, she was panicking more than she had ever been in her whole life. Her attention rotated between the guards that were now chasing after her, the freakin' familiar that was climbing up after her, and her plans on how she was going to deal with all of this. Every time she glanced down the familiar seemed to be getting closer to her, and she could clearly make out those hateful red lenses that were locked onto her. She couldn't stop to have the golem throw him off though, as then the guards would catch up to her. No, she needed a new solution, and would just have to improvise.

She screamed a string of curses at the familiar as she lifted rocks out of the golem with her magic and tossed them down at the armored man with alarmingly powerful force. He tried to dodge them by rolling out of the way, and succeeded for the most part, but many of them slammed down straight on his face, causing him to pause for maybe a second, but then he would just keep climbing up. Damnit! What the hell was he anyway!? Just one of those hits would kill any normal knight instantly.

Glacius probably couldn't have been any angrier in his entire life than he was now. Some freakin mage, out of nowhere, tries to kill him for no reason. He goes to fight her, and then she tries to ruin his plans by killing the princess and his master! Now here he was, having boulders dropped onto his face. He was seething with so much hatred and rage that the realspace around him threatened to rip apart simply from his psychic emotions. It was bubbling in anticipation, small bits of warped lightning crackling here and then across his armor.

"Just...you wait...till I get up there..." he gritted through his bloody mouth, warp energy fuming out of it. It seemed like an eternity, but he finally reached the shoulder and pulled himself up.

Before him was the hooded mage, her mouth hung open in disbelief at what she was seeing. It looked like she wanted to plead, wanted to beg for her life, but Glacius heard nothing other than the roar of his chainsword. It felt what he felt and wanted what he wanted; to see this wretched mage suffer for daring to interfere with his plans. Her death would be a slow one, that's for sure. Blood dripped from his mouth as a sick grin split across his face, masked by the dark helmet that hid all emotion.

"You're mine..." he hissed in a threatening tone as he began his march towards the fiend.

The thief had never seen Louise's familiar up this close before. Her whole body was quaking in sheer horror, as there was nowhere to run or hide. She tried to move, tried to scream, but her body would simply not listen to her pleading demands. The armored fiend grew larger as he continued his approach, that devil weapon of his screaming in ecstasy for her blood. Her body finally came under her control once again, and she slowly began to back up; careful not to fall off to her death.

"S-Stay back!" the thief managed to shout with determination that didn't actually exist. The familiar merely continued his march.

As she continued backing up, she used spells to raise stone walls between her and the approaching chaos marine, but the chainsword cut them down with ease as if they didn't even exist to begin with. Fouquet was now at the very edge of the titan, her balance being challenged considerably by the moving stone. One look downwards was all she needed to cause her body to quake, but then she looked forward again.

The chaos marine was now upon her, the eye on the center of his chest staring straight into her face from only a foot away. All she could see now was the black, eight-pointed star on his chest, but as she slowly looked up, she was blinded by the red lenses on his helmet which were now bright with bloodlust.

No! This wasn't where she would die! Before the thing could say a word or make another movement, she summoned a stone spike right between its legs, knocking it over completely. She then jumped down, a stone stairwell erupting from the side of the creature before her so she could hop down safely. Once she hit the forest, she cast another spell that would detonate her golem into the biggest frag grenade ever in about ten seconds. Except the fragments would be thousands of stone splinters the size of person's head, and no one within the blast radius would live long. She ran as fast as she could into the surrounding forest.

"So you're gonna run huh? Well that's no fun..."

Glacius was back on his feet now and saw the mage sprinting off to escape him. He jumped off the side of the golem and plunged his chainsword into the side of it, using it as somewhat of a brake to slow down his descent until he hit the dirt. He had to turn the blade off though, as it was cutting through too easily and he needed resistance.

Once the chaos warrior was on the deck, he immediately took off after her, ignoring the cries from his battered body as pure rage carried him forward. What happened next caught him by complete surprise.

He felt his body lift up from a massive blast wave, carrying him through the air and slamming him into the forest floor. He remained prone though, as he could feel the disturbance in the air as hundreds of stone spikes passed overhead, shredding through the trees and cutting down the plant and animal life in them. The guards who had been following close by were not so lucky however, as they were all at least severely wounded, nailed to the ground by the giant spikes in agony. None of them would make it at the end of the day.

Fouquet herself managed to survive because she had known what was coming and took cover in a nearby ditch, the whole catastrophe passing over her head. The thief was sure that nothing could survive that, as she surveyed the crater left behind and all the destruction caused.

"Hmph. So much for that guy!" she exclaimed triumphantly. She permitted herself a wicked smile, and then proceeded to continue running on. But her journey was soon at an end.

She tripped over as her feet became frozen blocks of ice, slamming her pretty face into the dark dirt. Fouquet looked up to see a small, blue-haired mage standing in front of her with a massive dragon behind her. She recognized the student immediately.

"T-Tabitha!?" the thief shouted.

"Hm? So you know me. You must have worked in the school then," Tabitha answered without much emotion.

Fouquet tried to cast a spell, but her wand hand was frozen in place the moment her mouth opened. Suddenly, she could hear heavy footsteps approaching quickly from behind, shaking the earth itself in their rush. Could it be…no! Nothing could have survived that blast!

"Your friend is almost here," Tabitha then stated as she turned around. "I'll let you two have your private time."

"Wha!? NO! WAIT! HE'LL KILL ME!" Fouquet screeched, but it was to no avail, as the young mage was already flying off back towards the academy. She heard herself whimpering as the footsteps slowed down and grew in volume.

"I won't kill you," a voice stated from behind her. It sounded heavy and machine-like, but the one thing she could easily pick out was the malice felt from it.

"R-really?" she stammered, tears forming in her eyes.

"No. I'll just make you wish you were dead."

They said the screams of the legendary thief could be heard from as far away as the academy in her last moments. And they were right, as a number of students would not be able to sleep for a while after listening to the horrible cries that echoed throughout the forest over the next few hours…

Later that day, back at the academy…

Louise was finally coming back to consciousness, her eyes slowly taking in the world around her. She was back in her room, lying in her bed, but she soon realized that she was not alone. Before Louise could jump at the intrusion, the person sitting on her bead next to her turned around and embraced.

"Oh Louise! Thank god!" Henrietta cried as she hugged her friend as tightly as possible.

"Oh, p-princess!?" Louise stammered.

"I thought I would lose you. I'm so relieved!"

When the princess finally released her grip, Louise asked the first question. "What…what happened? I remember being on the stage, then my familiar did some strange…spell? And now I'm here? How long has it been?"

"Only a few hours," the princess began. "When you passed out, your familiar was on his way carrying you back to the dorm when he caught that infamous thief, Fouquet the Sculptor, in the middle of trying to steal something from the academy."

The princess then looked down, her eyes filled with emotion. Louise then took notice of all the cuts on her face and saw how dirty her clothes had gotten.

"A terrible battle broke out, and a lot of my guards were wounded…I'm not sure…how many will make it…"

"Princess!"

"I-I…" Henrietta stammered as she looked at Louise with tear filled eyes. "I almost lost you! But…your familiar…he saved us…"

Louise's eyes grew a little wide at that. "Huh?"

"Yes. He saved both of our lives and managed to stop the stone golem from getting away," the princess stated. Louise had no idea what to make of this, as she had completely misjudged the armored familiar. She suddenly caught herself wondering if there was a real human being underneath all of that steel after all, but then pushed those thoughts aside immediately, her defensive attitude coming back into play.

"W-Well that's what I would expect of a familiar! He is supposed to protect me!" she exclaimed as she crossed her arms over her chest. The princess merely giggled before response.

"Oh Louise, I'm so glad to have you back. Say, where is your familiar anyway? I still want to meet him."

Louise was just about to ask herself that very question.

Outside…

Glacius' armor was caked in blood and dirt from the brutal fight earlier today. The blood wasn't his though, as he bled on the inside of his suit since it was never pierced. The sun was down now and most of the students were inside, so it was time to wash the armor clean and patch himself up, as his suit confirmed that the solid bone mass that replaced his ribs was cracked and he had a fractured shoulder. All of his organs were still in the green though, protected by the heavy muscles and bone. The bones would be healed quickly, so he wasn't worried about that in the slightest bit.

But what he was really curious about was why a thief would go through so much trouble to break into the school, especially while the princess was here? He then hefted his sword up as he walked back into the school courtyard.

"Derf, ask Miss Fouquet what she was after during her little 'raid'," Glacius demanded. The sword was quiet for a few moments as it communicated with her enslaved soul before answering.

"Something called 'The Staff of Destruction' partner," Derf stated. Glacius smiled a little bit. This sounded like a nice deal.

"Heh, now I'm a little curious. It seems we're going to have to pay a visit to this little vault…" the chaos marine stated with an evil smile underneath his helmet. This day just got better and better, didn't it?

"Shouldn't you take a rest partner? You're pretty banged up!"

Glacius smiled before answering. "Plenty of time to rest when I'm dead Derf..."

To be continued…

What could this staff be I wonder?! And what could possibly happen next? Find out next time!

Note: Just a heads up, I'm going off of the anime for the storyline (dubs for the 1st season), not the manga as I haven't read it, so some things might be missing or different if you're going off of that.