The sai flew toward Coco’s face. Coco smacked it out of the way with her bag and bolted for Carmine. She put all her strength into a blow across Carmine’s face, but it barely seemed to faze her. A blast of sand slammed into Coco from her left and she went down.

Carmine should have been at least a little bit worn down from fighting Grimm. Coco struggled to her feet, but more sand piled on top of her, pushing her down onto her back like an overturned tortoise. The Huntress had been challenging before, but she seemed nearly unstoppable now.

Coco’s brother Van used to like burying her in the sand on long-ago beach trips, when she was trying to sunbathe. After a year in Vacuo, Coco couldn’t believe she’d ever associated sun and sand with fun. The sand just kept on coming.

“Where are Yatsuhashi and Fox?” Carmine asked. “Why aren’t they rushing to your aid?”

Coco spat sand and ignored the question. “Where did you say you were—” Coco coughed. “Going?”

“Nice try,” Carmine said. Sand continued to pour over Coco. She would never plan a beach vacation again. If she survived this.

The Mirage, she’d said. Why did that sound so familiar? Like she’d heard it before. Or read it somewhere.

Coco nudged up her scarf to cover her nose and mouth. She squeezed her eyes shut as she was plunged into darkness and sand clogged her ears. She held her breath. On those beach trips, she’d been able to hold it for three minutes, forty-two seconds. But this time she hadn’t been able to take a deep breath first, and her heart was already pounding. Her lungs burned. If she opened her mouth, it would be all over.

“Oh, right, you brought the B-team out here.” Carmine’s voice was muffled by the sand covering Coco’s head.

How did Carmine know about the reassigned teams and their missions? Did she have a mole at Shade Academy?

“Coco?” Reese called.

I’m right here! Coco thought. One of her worst nightmares was being buried alive, but she’d never thought it would happen in the wide-open desert like this.

I should have woken the team up earlier, she thought.

Suddenly the sand stopped moving. Carmine was probably occupied now, fighting the rest of Team ROSC. But Coco was still under what felt like three hundred pounds of sand and she was almost out of air.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. Coco had one terrible idea, but if it worked, it was going to hurt. A lot.

Coco focused her Semblance on one of the Gravity Dust bullets on her weapon’s bandolier/purse strap, hyping up the explosive mineral until it—well, exploded.

The shock wave of the gravity-manipulating ordnance blasted the sand off of Coco, but it also exploded the rest of her bullets. The impact knocked her Aura down to a dangerously low level. She wheezed as the air in her lungs was pushed out and then she was gasping to replace it.

Her ears rang and her eyes were bleary, but she was happy to see she had stunned Carmine, who had been standing right on top of her. No, she’d only surprised her. Carmine still seemed as fresh as she had at the beginning of the fight. How was she even doing that?

- RWBY: Before the Dawn, Chapter 10