Somewhere in the distance, a bird squawked a warning before it flew off in search of shelter from the sandstorm. Fox was running out of time. Edward was running out of time.

Fox couldn’t get a good fix on Edward; he was tired, spurred on by desperation and adrenaline. There was definitely a mental presence ahead of him, coming in and out of Fox’s awareness.

He was fortunate that he could keep his eyes squeezed shut against the sand blasting into his face, rubbing the skin raw. Even being able to see wouldn’t have been much help right now, with the rising wind wiping out the trail Coco and Yatsu had spotted, as well as his own footsteps.

With his team split up and far away, with no way for them to find him, Fox suddenly felt vulnerable. It wasn’t a good feeling; it reminded him too much of his childhood and the life he’d left. He hadn’t been alone—really alone—a single day since he had enrolled at Beacon Academy and gone through his initiation.

At least Fox had his Scroll. He used it on a daily basis to get around whenever Coco and the others weren’t in close proximity, and to mask the fact that he could sense others and place them in his mind as well as in the space around him.

He plugged Ada’s tiny earpieces into his ears and switched on the Scroll.

“Tap to unlock,” the Accessibility Dialog Assistant said in her mechanical, vaguely feminine voice.

Fox tapped. He slid his thumb along his most common apps on the home screen, and got it on the second try.

“Compass activated,” Ada said.

“Thanks, Ada,” Fox said.

“You’re welcome, Fox.”

Fox kept walking forward. The sand kicked up around his shins now, and the wind tugged at his clothing and hair. He raised his hands to protect his face and pressed his mouth tightly shut.

Each time he picked up a blip of consciousness ahead, he adjusted his course and tapped the screen to lock in a trajectory. So when he went several minutes without another signal from the person he was following, he instructed Ada to beep softly if he strayed too far to the left or right as he pushed on.

Beep. He heard a gentle tone in his right ear. Fox angled himself slightly left and continued.

Beep, in his left ear. He turned two degrees to the right. He just hoped whomever he was following was sticking to the same course.

And then he tripped over a pile of sand. Only when he reached down and dug, he realized it was a man huddled on the ground, his head buried in his knees. The sand had a way of quickly covering anything that wasn’t moving.

“We have to keep moving,” Fox said, getting a mouthful of sand in the process. He realized the wind in his ears had gotten louder, so he tried his Semblance, but it failed him. He shouted instead. “Are you all right? Can you get up? We have to keep moving.”

Fox’s fingers danced over the man’s head. Thinning hair, tied into a ponytail. The beginnings of a beard, dusted with sand. Deep lines in his face, filled with sand. Lips dried and cracked, coated in sand.

“Edward,” Fox said. “Get up. Please. We have to find shelter.”

And I don’t know where that is, he thought.

They were screwed.

- RWBY: After the Fall, Chapter 10