Fox’s mouth was full of sand. He got up. He spat and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You call ambushing me ‘fair and square’?” Fox said.

“Over here.” Fox turned to follow the sound of Bertilak’s voice. The man was circling him in the sand.

His Scroll’s proximity alert was going haywire because of the sand blowing around them, decreasing visibility and messing with the motion sensors.

There was an old saying in Vacuo: “Listen to the desert.” It was meant on a philosophical level, that those who became one with the desert could survive in it. It also highlighted the fact that if you truly paid attention, you could hear—and see—that the desert wasn’t as lifeless as it appeared to be.

Fox tore the earbuds out of his ears and stuffed them in his pocket. He listened to the desert.

When he concentrated, he thought he could hear Bertilak moving. He even might be able to judge the Huntsman’s position from the sound of sand flying into him. Strangely, it reminded Fox of raindrops hitting the windowpane in his room at Beacon.

“What are you planning for Edward, Bertilak?” Fox asked.

Bertilak laughed. “Trying to keep me talking so you can keep track of me?”

Fox oriented on him again and confirmed that listening to the sand around them was effective as a crude sensor.

Bertilak rushed toward him. Fox backed up in time and brought his arm blades down in time to deflect a blow from Bertilak’s mace. He grabbed for where he thought the chain was, connected with it, and pulled, but it slipped out of his hands. Something sharp dug into Fox’s left forearm.

Bertilak’s mace dragged in the sand, splitting Fox’s attention and making it harder to pinpoint where Bertilak and his weapon were.

“Why would you kidnap a defenseless old man?”

“Defenseless?” Edward protested.

Fox turned slowly in the sand, following Bertilak’s motion, so the Huntsman would know he could follow him whether he was talking or not. Meanwhile, he kept trying to send a message to Edward: “Stop blocking our Semblances. I need to be able to see him. I need to be able to talk with you, mind to mind.”

- RWBY: After the Fall, Chapter 13