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Apollosarcher
shylarahSapphire walked down the corridor leisurely, she'd been at Beacon for about two months and the place was only now starting to feel like home. Her ready to go bag was still lying under the foot of her bed but she thought about it less. The first month here she'd more or less been living out of her suitcase but in the last two weeks she'd actually started to unpack.
Though Sapphire was beginning to enjoy being at Beacon there were those around campus that liked her presence decidedly less than she enjoyed being here. Chief among them was Ivan but they'd developed a kind of silent pact to stay out of each other’s paths, despite having all the same classes.
The real problem for Sapphire were the people she was unable to avoid, mainly her team. They'd never gotten to the point with her where they could see past her prickly antagonistic attitude and for Sapphire's part she didn't really care if they made the effort or not.
Abel took a lot of what she said personally and was rather quick to anger at the slightest indication that he or the rest of the team was being insulted. This Sapphire found incredibly amusing and often would drop veiled insults just to see exactly how Abel would react.
Gren was far more closed off, he seemed good natured enough and though she'd never say it to his face his cooking was delicious but he was always cold to her, which she couldn't really blame him for.
Shiro, now Shiro was the real problem. He couldn't seem to find a way to exist without doing something that ticked her off. Every action he made, he seemed to think needed to be grandiose and grab the attention of everyone in a room often not in a good way. He seemed to have no impulse control, no inhibitions and if she was being honest not much of a brain either.
Within Beacon Sapphire got along much better with people outside her team, more than likely because she wasn't forced to spend time with them. People like Oswald whom she'd started up a weekly sparring match with about a month ago. It was good for both of them, friendly matches without Goodwitch starring down her nose at them. He was getting faster and more adept as dealing with singular quick moving opponents while she was learning some pretty good ways to bring down larger opponents in record time.
Over the last two months Team Swansong had gone on several missions most of which had been completed successfully and they all come back alive and mostly unharmed. This as far as Sapphire was concerned was the job of a leader, she'd set the goals for her team, laid out the plan and gotten everyone home in one piece and yet it seemed to her that they thought she wasn't doing enough as team leader. It was infuriating, she was their commander and their strategist not their friend and the fact they thought friendship went hand and hand with command showed just how little they really knew about fighting as a unit.
It was around lunch time and Sapphire having already eaten a hardy breakfast decided she could go without food for the moment, besides she had an overwhelming urge to play her violin and look out over the edge of Beacon.
Since Sapphire had been at the school she'd discovered a walled garden along the edge of the school. It had a monstrous glass window that overlooked the Beacon cliff side and the lake below. The other three walls were made of stone bricks which were duff grey, overgrown with moss that matched the vibrant green of the rest of the garden. There was a little brook in one corner that emptied into a pool. It must have been some sort of artificial fountain but Sapphire like the way it looked and sounded anyways. Several trees grew along the edges by the walls as well as one in the very center. Spongy grass grew throughout the area and the bricks that made up the walls resonated with the sound of her violin to a most satisfying effect.
When she got there Sapphire opened her fiddle case and removed the beautiful instrument. She played a scale just to warm up before she started in on a rendition of Siuil A run [shool a rune]. Sapphire replaced the harp at the beginning with low, slow stroke of her fiddle before launching into the main song letting her voice echo off the stones. It was a beautiful piece, one of her mother's favorites even if it was sort of melancholy.
The second piece was Teir Abhaile Riu A portion of the lyrics were in an old language whose common practice had long fallen out of use. Sapphire had never bothered to look up what the chorus of the song meant even though she could sing it with precision. The gist of it was clear in the verses which were in English.
About halfway through the song while Sapphire was singing, ...Listen to what's reminding you, handsome men surrounding you, dancing a reel around you. Home you'll go, and it's there you'll stay, and there's work to do in the morning. Give up you dream of going away, forget you sailors in..." Sapphire heard a footstep behind her and stopped playing immediately. Playing her violin in Music class as part of an orchestra and sometimes in solos was one thing but playing for a one person audience was something that Sapphire never did except sometimes for her sisters.
Sapphire turned around preparing to tell whoever was approaching her to back off before she put a bullet through their head. Sapphire however didn't get the chance. As she turned around she took a step back as she spun, this saved her. A giant green chainsaw slammed down right in front of her face, her fiddle shattered into splinters and a lock of hair was severed, falling to the ground but the initial blow missed.
A flare of anger charged through Sapphire at the destruction of her mother's prized instrument but she also knew that charging at her assailant without a plan would likely lead to many injuries, and she wasn't soon going to forget the broken rib she'd had at the beginning of the semester. Sapphire dropped the head of the fiddle, she'd retrieve its remains later.
Sapphire ran at one of the trees in the grove, grabbed one of the lower branches and swung herself up in an arc, her feet landing on a higher branch. From her perch out of the way of attacks she looked down on her assailant and was surprised to see her Teammate Gren Orchid standing with murder in his eyes and The God Eater in his hands.
Sapphire looked down on Gren with fire in her own. "That was my mother's fiddle." The months she'd spent as a member of Team Swansong Sapphire had not once mentioned her mother to anyone on her Team. It was clear right away what Gren had done to the fiddle had been a big mistake. The anger in his eyes did not lesson but accompanying it something along the lines of "Oops I made her mad."
"What's wrong with you Orchid? Where did this come from?"
Gren looked up at her in the tree just out of reach. "This has been coming for a long time, not least of which is what you did to Shiro yesterday."
Sapphire looked at him with surprise. Yesterday Shiro had done something stupid again, she was having trouble remembering what it was this time. Was that when Shiro had improperly stored a vial of dust in Armoury class vaporizing half the class's inventions and the teachers eyebrows when the storage cabinet was next open or was it when he climbed on top of the table in the cafeteria to sing a love song dedicated to that fox Faunus Mokuren but tripped on someone's lunch sending the better part of a plate mashed potatoes and sour cream into Sapphire's face. The more she thought of it the more Sapphire decided that was the likely one to have occurred yesterday.
Afterwards Sapphire had reacted rather violently. She'd drawn her shotguns firing two shots over Shiro's shoulders as warning shots. It had devolved from there into a weapons fight, most of the students had drawn back along the walls while Sapphire and Shiro's battle wrecked the cafeteria. She'd inevitably won, neither of them had sustained lasting injuries and the rest of the day went along as usual. Sapphire honestly hadn't given it another thought until now.
"Kuhaku?" She asked somewhat surprised that he'd taken the event so seriously. "What about it? He's a fool, with you and Abel coddling him he's never going to learn what a liability that is."
This seemed to infuriate Gren further. "What kind of attitude is that?" He shouted angrily. "You're supposed to be out leader, our fri..." he stopped himself mid word as if it was going too far.
Sapphire let out a shriek of mirthless laughter. "You're friend? Is that what you were going to say? I've always been something to you guys but it was never that. Friendship is earned, not assumed merely because we are forced to room together. I'm here to make sure that you all shape up and come home alive. Imagine what would happen if Kuhaku did something that stupid during a mission, he could get us all killed."
Gren apparently was still incredibly mad. "So you talk to him, explain what's going on. Good God, Sapphire you’re supposed be there for your team not taking shots at them."
"Talk to him? Like you and Abel? He forgets everything you said in twenty four hours. Less if he uses that semblance of his. Fear and aggression are both encoded in the brain more permanently than other emotions so he might hold onto it."
Sapphire realized just too late that Gren wasn't listening anymore. He'd gotten her to keep talking while he changed his weapon from Terror Form to Destroyer. In its Destroyer Form the God Eater could be used as a Gatling gun, a Flame Thrower and a Rocket Launcher. Long ranged weaponry.
Sapphire kicked off the tree trunk, as a wall of fire burst forth from the God Eater. She was aiming for the top of the garden wall. She landed hands first, her legs swinging up over her head before she flipped, finishing in a crouch on the wall’s top. A sizable portion of the hair that normally hung in a curtain on the left side of her face had been singed off. It would take forever to grow back in, he was going to pay for that.
Sapphire was aware that Gren's God Eater in Destroyer Form was more or less a long ranged weapon more suited to dealing with multiple foes than one quick opponent. She had to get in close fast, it took the weapon a bit of time to change between forms and Sapphire could use that to her advantage. The most the Destroyer could in in close range was act as a club as long as she avoided being in front of the live end.
Sapphire straightened and ran along the top of the wall. On the other side, one way was the edge of Beacon itself. The opposite side blocked a by buildings and the last two had a very nasty fall before they got to the grounds. This garden though beautiful was high up. There would be no running from this arena by any means other than the door Gren was guarding.
As Sapphire ran a hail of bullets rained down on the stones at her feet, bits of brick bursting off just at her heels. Sapphire pulled both her shotguns from there holsters on her back loading both with ice cartridges. She fired two directly at the muzzle of the God Eater and the other two at Gren's legs.
When the rounds exploded in ice over Gren's weapon it dissipated almost instantly. The God Eater was hot enough to melt soft metals from using the flamethrower but Sapphire had counted on that. The ice turned into vaporous steam creating a cloud around Gren through which he was unable to see.
The other two shots hit his legs square on freezing them in place. That of course would not last too long but a moment was all Sapphire needed. She slapped her shotguns together creating the halberd form of her pole arm. In that amount of time Sapphire could hear the ice she'd used on Gren shatter as no doubt he crushed it with the butt of his weapon.
With no time to lose Sapphire leapt off the wall catching several branches of trees on her way down to reduce and redirect her momentum. She landed in front of Gren just as the steam evaporated. He seemed stunned for a second at how fast she moved but didn't get a chance to react before Sapphire spun her pole arm in her hands cracking him once across his head then before he could recover twice more, she brought the other side of her weapon up hitting him hard under the chin before she spun the pole arm the original front smashing diagonally over his skull.
This didn't do the damage she'd originally hopped. He was a boar faunus with incredibly dense skin and bone as well as currently wearing very effective armor. He'd likely have a headache in the morning but he was far from disabled.
Sapphire tried to dart around him but Gren brought the God Eater up smacking her across the face with the side of the weapon. She'd clearly underestimated its value as a club. The blow send her careening back, seeing stars as she slid along the soft ground. Gren would be coming any moment to finish the job he'd started. She needed to distract him.
"You know what this is really about don't you Gren. This isn't because of some concern for Kuhaku, some slighted honor that I challenged a teammate, no, this is because you're sore that Ozpin picked me as team leader. You think you would have made a better choice and you know what maybe you're right you could have been more effective but you know one thing? It's those that want power that are unworthy to wield it. You think I wanted this job, it's a pain in the ass making sure everyone else is all right. I could be so much more effective if I battle how I'm used to without worrying about anyone else. I got saddled with this job and so I'm damned well going to do it proper and not let some sore loser snatch it away."
Sapphire didn't know till she'd said it that it had been one hundred percent the truth but it didn't matter either way. She'd clearly shocked Gren if only for a second. In that time she used her pole arm which mercifully had landed close to push herself to her feet. Gren realizing that she was planning something charged intent on stopping her before she could. Sapphire rather than running away ran directly at the hulking boar Faunus. At the last second she pushed her weapon into the ground using it to vault over her teammate. He was moving too fast to react.
When she landed Sapphire fired another round at Gren's back, it just happened to be electricity. Bolts of it arced over his armor as it struck, clearly very painful but it didn't last long.
At some point since he'd hit her with the Destroyer Gren had changed it back to the Terror. In this form it was more akin to an enormous chainsaw which looked very intimidating. He ran at Sapphire again except this time halfway through it seemed the run turned into something else. Something of a slide. As if the ground had suddenly turned to mud or water. Of course, it was his semblance. Gren was reducing friction to his feet allowing him to rush her at an incredibly speed that would only increase the impact of his next attack.
Sapphire having been backed into a wall by the approaching Gren had no other option but to use her pole arm as her only means of defense. When the blow came it was crushing. It hit her pole arm, the God Eater sawing threw the metal and across her face before Gren recalled it. The blow had been so devastating that it cut right through Sapphire's aura slicing a long wound from her earlobe to her chin. It wasn't deep but Sapphire knew it would scar, she had enough of those already this wasn't one she'd be able to hide. The impact then translated over her entire body crushing her into the ground. She could a crack in one of her legs and a shooting pain flared up her thigh. Sapphire torn her weapon away from Gren's and bashed him in the face with the muzzle of the now inoperable shotgun. She'd apparently hit squarely on his nose cause blood started to flow and he staggered back.
Sapphire ran for all she was worth towards one of the trees and up again onto the wall. His use of his semblance had given her an idea but it would only work if he used his weapon in Destroyer From. Her semblance allowed her to vanish if she used it aggressively but Gren was more than aware of that. If she simply disappeared he's start firing his weapon rapidly and eventually hit her with enough force to break her concentration and her semblance.
If she was to use it, she needed a reason that his mind would except for why she'd vanished. She looked down on him from her perch. "That all you got Gren? I thought boar Faunus were supposed to be blood thirsty?" It was something she'd heard her father say once and as far as she knew it wasn't all that accurate but there was no surer way to enrage a Faunus than to insult their heritage.
"AAAGGGHHH." Gren roared her weapon shifting forms. He unleashed the flamethrower again but Sapphire who was ready for him to not go full out dodged the flames albeit barely. "What's the matter? Too fast for you?" She yelled and this time she got the reaction she was hoping for. Gren raised the God Eater to his eye like an RPG and prepared to fire a rocket.
Sapphire smiled, this was it. As the explosive came whistling towards her Sapphire waiting for the last possible moment before she jumped off the wall to the ground. The rocket followed her, impacting the wall just above her head. Brick rained down on her and she was sure Gren heard her hit the ground but he couldn't see anything with the amount of smoke his attack had created. On the ground Sapphire shed her jacket, a shoe, her belt and her pole arm. She dumped them into the fire in a way that would make it look as though she'd been vaporized. For good measure she used Morpheus and Phobator which she'd activated to cut out a couple pieces of her already singed hair leaving them at the impact sight.
Then she switched on her semblance hoping that as the smoke cleared Gren would think he'd hit her square on as she hopped off the wall. It must have looked close from his side. Sapphire heard his voice, "Sapphire, Sapphire are you there?" Evidently in his rage he'd no thought out exactly what his rocket could have done to her.
As the smoke cleared Gren was still looking round the grove for her. She smiled it had worked. Though it wasn't strictly necessary Sapphire kept her footfall muffled on the ground as she approached. She circled him with her daggers approaching his back, when she was just about to slide the metal around his neck Gren turned suddenly grabbing her by the throat.
"Gotcha." he said "you're a big fan of that disappearing trick and I'm not fool enough to think that my rocket could have hit you, you're too good for that. If it was anyone else maybe but not you."
Sapphire didn't speak but a grin spread over her face. Gren looked at her a bit alarmed. "Why are you smiling?"
"Look at your feet?" Gren glanced down and Sapphire took the opportunity to stab him in the arm and jump out of his range. The stab didn't do any damaged given he'd had his aura to protect him but it surprised him enough that he let go. "I should have known it was a bluff." He snarled.
"Oh, it wasn't a bluff," Sapphire said the confidence of her win plastered across her face. "I just didn't want to get caught in the blast radius." Gren looked down more closely and saw Phobator lying at his feet. Sapphire had sealed both the booster and the blade openings then activated the rocket. Pressure would build up slowly but surely until... a second after Gren registered what had happened the dagger detonated with a tremendous explosion throwing the Boar Faunus against the wall.
Sapphire heard a loud crack which she took to be his head hitting the stone. This one was hers, he was down for the count. Sapphire walked over to him and waved her hand in front of his face. He was out, a small line of blood flowing front his head, the explosion had depleted his aura and likely given him a nasty concussion but she was pretty sure he'd live.
Once satisfied that he’d be more or less alright Sapphire walked over to the other casualty of the battle, her poor fiddle. The head and a section of the base were more or less intact but splinters of destroyed wood littered the ground. Sapphire cleared up as many pieces as she could placing them with reverence into her fiddle case. She hoped they could be incorporated into a new fiddle but feared that she would have to lay them to rest never to be seen again. No violin Sapphire had ever heard sounded quite like her mothers.
Then she retrieved the mangled remains of Phobator. The hilt had been ripped open and the dust mechanisms inside were shot to hell. She might be able to salvage some of the parts and she still had her mother's blueprints for the original. Sapphire would built a new dagger in armory class. Maybe she'd call it Melinoe, which was another ancient Grimm responsible so the legends said for causing nightmares.
As she was about the leave the garden both Ozpin and Goodwitch appeared. Though both had clearly run here neither looked out of breath. Goodwitch was as stern as ever if a bit alarmed. "What happened here? We received word of an explosion." she asked though her tone was not severe the look in her eyes was.
"The idiot whom I called a teammate tried to kill me. I want him gone, gone from Swansong, gone from Beacon."
"Now listen here young lady," Goodwitch stormed. "You do not give orders at this school."
Sapphire had never been one to invoke her father's name in official business, in fact she didn't like to use it in everyday conversation but the loss of her fiddle had hit a lot harder than she liked to say. It was like another piece of her mother had been killed, like she was back in that place more than ten years ago. "My father Janus still has a great deal of pull in this school and he won't take this lightly." Sapphire said starring Goodwitch down. Chances were Janus would be more interested in hearing about her battle technique during the attempt on her live then whether she was okay or not but if she asked him just right Sapphire felt she could get him to pull some strings and have Gren Orchid removed from Beacon Academy. She never wanted to see his face ever again.
Though Sapphire was beginning to enjoy being at Beacon there were those around campus that liked her presence decidedly less than she enjoyed being here. Chief among them was Ivan but they'd developed a kind of silent pact to stay out of each other’s paths, despite having all the same classes.
The real problem for Sapphire were the people she was unable to avoid, mainly her team. They'd never gotten to the point with her where they could see past her prickly antagonistic attitude and for Sapphire's part she didn't really care if they made the effort or not.
Abel took a lot of what she said personally and was rather quick to anger at the slightest indication that he or the rest of the team was being insulted. This Sapphire found incredibly amusing and often would drop veiled insults just to see exactly how Abel would react.
Gren was far more closed off, he seemed good natured enough and though she'd never say it to his face his cooking was delicious but he was always cold to her, which she couldn't really blame him for.
Shiro, now Shiro was the real problem. He couldn't seem to find a way to exist without doing something that ticked her off. Every action he made, he seemed to think needed to be grandiose and grab the attention of everyone in a room often not in a good way. He seemed to have no impulse control, no inhibitions and if she was being honest not much of a brain either.
Within Beacon Sapphire got along much better with people outside her team, more than likely because she wasn't forced to spend time with them. People like Oswald whom she'd started up a weekly sparring match with about a month ago. It was good for both of them, friendly matches without Goodwitch starring down her nose at them. He was getting faster and more adept as dealing with singular quick moving opponents while she was learning some pretty good ways to bring down larger opponents in record time.
Over the last two months Team Swansong had gone on several missions most of which had been completed successfully and they all come back alive and mostly unharmed. This as far as Sapphire was concerned was the job of a leader, she'd set the goals for her team, laid out the plan and gotten everyone home in one piece and yet it seemed to her that they thought she wasn't doing enough as team leader. It was infuriating, she was their commander and their strategist not their friend and the fact they thought friendship went hand and hand with command showed just how little they really knew about fighting as a unit.
It was around lunch time and Sapphire having already eaten a hardy breakfast decided she could go without food for the moment, besides she had an overwhelming urge to play her violin and look out over the edge of Beacon.
Since Sapphire had been at the school she'd discovered a walled garden along the edge of the school. It had a monstrous glass window that overlooked the Beacon cliff side and the lake below. The other three walls were made of stone bricks which were duff grey, overgrown with moss that matched the vibrant green of the rest of the garden. There was a little brook in one corner that emptied into a pool. It must have been some sort of artificial fountain but Sapphire like the way it looked and sounded anyways. Several trees grew along the edges by the walls as well as one in the very center. Spongy grass grew throughout the area and the bricks that made up the walls resonated with the sound of her violin to a most satisfying effect.
When she got there Sapphire opened her fiddle case and removed the beautiful instrument. She played a scale just to warm up before she started in on a rendition of Siuil A run [shool a rune]. Sapphire replaced the harp at the beginning with low, slow stroke of her fiddle before launching into the main song letting her voice echo off the stones. It was a beautiful piece, one of her mother's favorites even if it was sort of melancholy.
The second piece was Teir Abhaile Riu A portion of the lyrics were in an old language whose common practice had long fallen out of use. Sapphire had never bothered to look up what the chorus of the song meant even though she could sing it with precision. The gist of it was clear in the verses which were in English.
About halfway through the song while Sapphire was singing, ...Listen to what's reminding you, handsome men surrounding you, dancing a reel around you. Home you'll go, and it's there you'll stay, and there's work to do in the morning. Give up you dream of going away, forget you sailors in..." Sapphire heard a footstep behind her and stopped playing immediately. Playing her violin in Music class as part of an orchestra and sometimes in solos was one thing but playing for a one person audience was something that Sapphire never did except sometimes for her sisters.
Sapphire turned around preparing to tell whoever was approaching her to back off before she put a bullet through their head. Sapphire however didn't get the chance. As she turned around she took a step back as she spun, this saved her. A giant green chainsaw slammed down right in front of her face, her fiddle shattered into splinters and a lock of hair was severed, falling to the ground but the initial blow missed.
A flare of anger charged through Sapphire at the destruction of her mother's prized instrument but she also knew that charging at her assailant without a plan would likely lead to many injuries, and she wasn't soon going to forget the broken rib she'd had at the beginning of the semester. Sapphire dropped the head of the fiddle, she'd retrieve its remains later.
Sapphire ran at one of the trees in the grove, grabbed one of the lower branches and swung herself up in an arc, her feet landing on a higher branch. From her perch out of the way of attacks she looked down on her assailant and was surprised to see her Teammate Gren Orchid standing with murder in his eyes and The God Eater in his hands.
Sapphire looked down on Gren with fire in her own. "That was my mother's fiddle." The months she'd spent as a member of Team Swansong Sapphire had not once mentioned her mother to anyone on her Team. It was clear right away what Gren had done to the fiddle had been a big mistake. The anger in his eyes did not lesson but accompanying it something along the lines of "Oops I made her mad."
"What's wrong with you Orchid? Where did this come from?"
Gren looked up at her in the tree just out of reach. "This has been coming for a long time, not least of which is what you did to Shiro yesterday."
Sapphire looked at him with surprise. Yesterday Shiro had done something stupid again, she was having trouble remembering what it was this time. Was that when Shiro had improperly stored a vial of dust in Armoury class vaporizing half the class's inventions and the teachers eyebrows when the storage cabinet was next open or was it when he climbed on top of the table in the cafeteria to sing a love song dedicated to that fox Faunus Mokuren but tripped on someone's lunch sending the better part of a plate mashed potatoes and sour cream into Sapphire's face. The more she thought of it the more Sapphire decided that was the likely one to have occurred yesterday.
Afterwards Sapphire had reacted rather violently. She'd drawn her shotguns firing two shots over Shiro's shoulders as warning shots. It had devolved from there into a weapons fight, most of the students had drawn back along the walls while Sapphire and Shiro's battle wrecked the cafeteria. She'd inevitably won, neither of them had sustained lasting injuries and the rest of the day went along as usual. Sapphire honestly hadn't given it another thought until now.
"Kuhaku?" She asked somewhat surprised that he'd taken the event so seriously. "What about it? He's a fool, with you and Abel coddling him he's never going to learn what a liability that is."
This seemed to infuriate Gren further. "What kind of attitude is that?" He shouted angrily. "You're supposed to be out leader, our fri..." he stopped himself mid word as if it was going too far.
Sapphire let out a shriek of mirthless laughter. "You're friend? Is that what you were going to say? I've always been something to you guys but it was never that. Friendship is earned, not assumed merely because we are forced to room together. I'm here to make sure that you all shape up and come home alive. Imagine what would happen if Kuhaku did something that stupid during a mission, he could get us all killed."
Gren apparently was still incredibly mad. "So you talk to him, explain what's going on. Good God, Sapphire you’re supposed be there for your team not taking shots at them."
"Talk to him? Like you and Abel? He forgets everything you said in twenty four hours. Less if he uses that semblance of his. Fear and aggression are both encoded in the brain more permanently than other emotions so he might hold onto it."
Sapphire realized just too late that Gren wasn't listening anymore. He'd gotten her to keep talking while he changed his weapon from Terror Form to Destroyer. In its Destroyer Form the God Eater could be used as a Gatling gun, a Flame Thrower and a Rocket Launcher. Long ranged weaponry.
Sapphire kicked off the tree trunk, as a wall of fire burst forth from the God Eater. She was aiming for the top of the garden wall. She landed hands first, her legs swinging up over her head before she flipped, finishing in a crouch on the wall’s top. A sizable portion of the hair that normally hung in a curtain on the left side of her face had been singed off. It would take forever to grow back in, he was going to pay for that.
Sapphire was aware that Gren's God Eater in Destroyer Form was more or less a long ranged weapon more suited to dealing with multiple foes than one quick opponent. She had to get in close fast, it took the weapon a bit of time to change between forms and Sapphire could use that to her advantage. The most the Destroyer could in in close range was act as a club as long as she avoided being in front of the live end.
Sapphire straightened and ran along the top of the wall. On the other side, one way was the edge of Beacon itself. The opposite side blocked a by buildings and the last two had a very nasty fall before they got to the grounds. This garden though beautiful was high up. There would be no running from this arena by any means other than the door Gren was guarding.
As Sapphire ran a hail of bullets rained down on the stones at her feet, bits of brick bursting off just at her heels. Sapphire pulled both her shotguns from there holsters on her back loading both with ice cartridges. She fired two directly at the muzzle of the God Eater and the other two at Gren's legs.
When the rounds exploded in ice over Gren's weapon it dissipated almost instantly. The God Eater was hot enough to melt soft metals from using the flamethrower but Sapphire had counted on that. The ice turned into vaporous steam creating a cloud around Gren through which he was unable to see.
The other two shots hit his legs square on freezing them in place. That of course would not last too long but a moment was all Sapphire needed. She slapped her shotguns together creating the halberd form of her pole arm. In that amount of time Sapphire could hear the ice she'd used on Gren shatter as no doubt he crushed it with the butt of his weapon.
With no time to lose Sapphire leapt off the wall catching several branches of trees on her way down to reduce and redirect her momentum. She landed in front of Gren just as the steam evaporated. He seemed stunned for a second at how fast she moved but didn't get a chance to react before Sapphire spun her pole arm in her hands cracking him once across his head then before he could recover twice more, she brought the other side of her weapon up hitting him hard under the chin before she spun the pole arm the original front smashing diagonally over his skull.
This didn't do the damage she'd originally hopped. He was a boar faunus with incredibly dense skin and bone as well as currently wearing very effective armor. He'd likely have a headache in the morning but he was far from disabled.
Sapphire tried to dart around him but Gren brought the God Eater up smacking her across the face with the side of the weapon. She'd clearly underestimated its value as a club. The blow send her careening back, seeing stars as she slid along the soft ground. Gren would be coming any moment to finish the job he'd started. She needed to distract him.
"You know what this is really about don't you Gren. This isn't because of some concern for Kuhaku, some slighted honor that I challenged a teammate, no, this is because you're sore that Ozpin picked me as team leader. You think you would have made a better choice and you know what maybe you're right you could have been more effective but you know one thing? It's those that want power that are unworthy to wield it. You think I wanted this job, it's a pain in the ass making sure everyone else is all right. I could be so much more effective if I battle how I'm used to without worrying about anyone else. I got saddled with this job and so I'm damned well going to do it proper and not let some sore loser snatch it away."
Sapphire didn't know till she'd said it that it had been one hundred percent the truth but it didn't matter either way. She'd clearly shocked Gren if only for a second. In that time she used her pole arm which mercifully had landed close to push herself to her feet. Gren realizing that she was planning something charged intent on stopping her before she could. Sapphire rather than running away ran directly at the hulking boar Faunus. At the last second she pushed her weapon into the ground using it to vault over her teammate. He was moving too fast to react.
When she landed Sapphire fired another round at Gren's back, it just happened to be electricity. Bolts of it arced over his armor as it struck, clearly very painful but it didn't last long.
At some point since he'd hit her with the Destroyer Gren had changed it back to the Terror. In this form it was more akin to an enormous chainsaw which looked very intimidating. He ran at Sapphire again except this time halfway through it seemed the run turned into something else. Something of a slide. As if the ground had suddenly turned to mud or water. Of course, it was his semblance. Gren was reducing friction to his feet allowing him to rush her at an incredibly speed that would only increase the impact of his next attack.
Sapphire having been backed into a wall by the approaching Gren had no other option but to use her pole arm as her only means of defense. When the blow came it was crushing. It hit her pole arm, the God Eater sawing threw the metal and across her face before Gren recalled it. The blow had been so devastating that it cut right through Sapphire's aura slicing a long wound from her earlobe to her chin. It wasn't deep but Sapphire knew it would scar, she had enough of those already this wasn't one she'd be able to hide. The impact then translated over her entire body crushing her into the ground. She could a crack in one of her legs and a shooting pain flared up her thigh. Sapphire torn her weapon away from Gren's and bashed him in the face with the muzzle of the now inoperable shotgun. She'd apparently hit squarely on his nose cause blood started to flow and he staggered back.
Sapphire ran for all she was worth towards one of the trees and up again onto the wall. His use of his semblance had given her an idea but it would only work if he used his weapon in Destroyer From. Her semblance allowed her to vanish if she used it aggressively but Gren was more than aware of that. If she simply disappeared he's start firing his weapon rapidly and eventually hit her with enough force to break her concentration and her semblance.
If she was to use it, she needed a reason that his mind would except for why she'd vanished. She looked down on him from her perch. "That all you got Gren? I thought boar Faunus were supposed to be blood thirsty?" It was something she'd heard her father say once and as far as she knew it wasn't all that accurate but there was no surer way to enrage a Faunus than to insult their heritage.
"AAAGGGHHH." Gren roared her weapon shifting forms. He unleashed the flamethrower again but Sapphire who was ready for him to not go full out dodged the flames albeit barely. "What's the matter? Too fast for you?" She yelled and this time she got the reaction she was hoping for. Gren raised the God Eater to his eye like an RPG and prepared to fire a rocket.
Sapphire smiled, this was it. As the explosive came whistling towards her Sapphire waiting for the last possible moment before she jumped off the wall to the ground. The rocket followed her, impacting the wall just above her head. Brick rained down on her and she was sure Gren heard her hit the ground but he couldn't see anything with the amount of smoke his attack had created. On the ground Sapphire shed her jacket, a shoe, her belt and her pole arm. She dumped them into the fire in a way that would make it look as though she'd been vaporized. For good measure she used Morpheus and Phobator which she'd activated to cut out a couple pieces of her already singed hair leaving them at the impact sight.
Then she switched on her semblance hoping that as the smoke cleared Gren would think he'd hit her square on as she hopped off the wall. It must have looked close from his side. Sapphire heard his voice, "Sapphire, Sapphire are you there?" Evidently in his rage he'd no thought out exactly what his rocket could have done to her.
As the smoke cleared Gren was still looking round the grove for her. She smiled it had worked. Though it wasn't strictly necessary Sapphire kept her footfall muffled on the ground as she approached. She circled him with her daggers approaching his back, when she was just about to slide the metal around his neck Gren turned suddenly grabbing her by the throat.
"Gotcha." he said "you're a big fan of that disappearing trick and I'm not fool enough to think that my rocket could have hit you, you're too good for that. If it was anyone else maybe but not you."
Sapphire didn't speak but a grin spread over her face. Gren looked at her a bit alarmed. "Why are you smiling?"
"Look at your feet?" Gren glanced down and Sapphire took the opportunity to stab him in the arm and jump out of his range. The stab didn't do any damaged given he'd had his aura to protect him but it surprised him enough that he let go. "I should have known it was a bluff." He snarled.
"Oh, it wasn't a bluff," Sapphire said the confidence of her win plastered across her face. "I just didn't want to get caught in the blast radius." Gren looked down more closely and saw Phobator lying at his feet. Sapphire had sealed both the booster and the blade openings then activated the rocket. Pressure would build up slowly but surely until... a second after Gren registered what had happened the dagger detonated with a tremendous explosion throwing the Boar Faunus against the wall.
Sapphire heard a loud crack which she took to be his head hitting the stone. This one was hers, he was down for the count. Sapphire walked over to him and waved her hand in front of his face. He was out, a small line of blood flowing front his head, the explosion had depleted his aura and likely given him a nasty concussion but she was pretty sure he'd live.
Once satisfied that he’d be more or less alright Sapphire walked over to the other casualty of the battle, her poor fiddle. The head and a section of the base were more or less intact but splinters of destroyed wood littered the ground. Sapphire cleared up as many pieces as she could placing them with reverence into her fiddle case. She hoped they could be incorporated into a new fiddle but feared that she would have to lay them to rest never to be seen again. No violin Sapphire had ever heard sounded quite like her mothers.
Then she retrieved the mangled remains of Phobator. The hilt had been ripped open and the dust mechanisms inside were shot to hell. She might be able to salvage some of the parts and she still had her mother's blueprints for the original. Sapphire would built a new dagger in armory class. Maybe she'd call it Melinoe, which was another ancient Grimm responsible so the legends said for causing nightmares.
As she was about the leave the garden both Ozpin and Goodwitch appeared. Though both had clearly run here neither looked out of breath. Goodwitch was as stern as ever if a bit alarmed. "What happened here? We received word of an explosion." she asked though her tone was not severe the look in her eyes was.
"The idiot whom I called a teammate tried to kill me. I want him gone, gone from Swansong, gone from Beacon."
"Now listen here young lady," Goodwitch stormed. "You do not give orders at this school."
Sapphire had never been one to invoke her father's name in official business, in fact she didn't like to use it in everyday conversation but the loss of her fiddle had hit a lot harder than she liked to say. It was like another piece of her mother had been killed, like she was back in that place more than ten years ago. "My father Janus still has a great deal of pull in this school and he won't take this lightly." Sapphire said starring Goodwitch down. Chances were Janus would be more interested in hearing about her battle technique during the attempt on her live then whether she was okay or not but if she asked him just right Sapphire felt she could get him to pull some strings and have Gren Orchid removed from Beacon Academy. She never wanted to see his face ever again.