"Come on Fox, just try it at least," a friend said.
"I'm not sure if it's a good idea," Fox said watching his friend hold the vial filled with the silvery-white colored Dust he was able to get somehow.
"But you could be like a superhero who could freeze bad guys in his sight," his friend said.
"That was because the mask had Dust fused into the material," Fox said.
"But what if you could shoot beams of ice out of your eyes?" his friend asked, goading him.
"How does it even work though?" Fox asked.
"Can you trust me on this, I overheard my brother talk about how it could work by dissolving it in water," his friend said.
"Are you sure it wasn't with tea because the tea he makes is one of the best I've tasted," Fox said.
"Just trust me on it okay?" his friend asked; the last that was all it took to make Fox agree.
Locking themselves in Fox's bedroom, Fox's friend was already dissolving the Dust in cold water as Fox was shutting the curtains making sure no one could see what they were doing. Getting the eyedropper and filling it halfway with the Dust and Water Solution, his friend carefully placed two drops for each eye as Fox waited; blinking at each time a drop fell into his eye.
"Okay, my brother said wait for two minutes so I guess you should keep your eyes closed until then," his friend said, "I'll keep track of the time."
Those two minutes, Fox felt like his eyes were burning like they were lit ablaze. His ears seemed to have been sharper; he could hear his friend's once silent breath as easily as his own. He could smell the lunch his mom was making, the kitchen being downstairs while his bedroom was at the end of the hall. Yet all he has been seeing since those droplets with dissolved Dust entered his eyes was darkness. Once his friend signaled to him that two minutes were up, when Fox opened his eyes, he felt tears slip down his cheeks as all he saw in front of him was darkness.
"What's wrong? Why aren't you doing it yet?" his friend said, now nothing more than a voice to him.
"Where exactly did you get the Dust?" Fox asked.
"From your sister's room, why?" His friend said.
From Ignacia's room? She was a huntress but focused more on the properties of Dust and how she could refine the uses to become more pragmatic than during a battle and as an energy source. She had multitudes of vials of Dust in her room in a safe place, from the basic Dust like Fire, Water, Wind and Energy. Although she also had the more secondary ones like Ice, Lighting, Steam, etc. From what Fox remembered, Ignacia was testing out a possibility for Metal Dust. However, the one type of Dust Fox knew she didn't have or use was Ice. Which meant that it was a type of Dust she was working on.
"Was there…a label nearby the vial you took?" Fox asked.
"Not really, maybe there was," his friend said.
There had to be a label somewhere, maybe it was knocked over or something. Or it was there, but his friend misinterpreted it. But if it was a Dust she was working on, then it would have been locked away in the cabinet in her room with the glass windows.
"Where exactly in her room did you get it from?" Fox asked, his voice sounding more menacing than he needed it to be.
"Why do you keep on asking and not using your new Ice powers now?" his friend said, almost shouting that would alerted Fox's mom, but to Fox, it felt like his eardrums were in pain.
"Dust is a source of energy in Remnant; it was named by how we supposedly came to be. Dust is also an energy propellant or Nature's Wrath that was used to fight the Grimm," Fox said subconsciously retelling what Ignacia told him when he first went into her room, "Dust's effects are both elegant and destructive."
"Why are you giving me a Dust lesson now of all times? Just start using your new Ice powers already," his friend said.
"Then just leave already okay?" Fox asked turning away from his friend's voice desperately looking for his bed without revealing that he could no longer see. He waited until he heard his friend's footsteps trail to the door which was shut and followed by somewhat mute footsteps. Hearing the almost mute conversation between his friend and his mother was surprising, he could hear his friend saying he had to go home for some reason and left.
It wasn't soon after that his mom came to his door softly knocking on it.
"Please, just leave me alone, okay?" Fox asked in an almost whisper as he began to cover himself in the blankets on his bed.
Weeks began to pass by; Fox was waiting for Ignacia to return. He was always waiting for the footsteps to become distant enough for him to slip into the bathroom and back to his room and whenever his mother left a snack or a meal for him in front of his door. It worried his mother, she never saw him leave his room and he never answers to any of her questions anymore.
"Fox, it's me, what's going on?" Ignacia asked.
"Can you come in alone?" Fox asked.
Ignacia went into the disarrayed room questioning what her younger brother wanted before truly noticing it.
"Fox, what did you do to your eyes?" Ignacia asked.
"It wasn't my fault," Fox said, "I didn't want to do it, my friend went into your room to get some Dust that he mixed up and thought was Ice Dust. It was his idea to have ice beams come from my eyes not mine."
"Fox, calm down, you're okay," Ignacia said looking into her brother's lifeless eyes, "it was just your eyes right?"
"Yes, are you mad at me?" Fox asked.
"No, you just made it easier to figure out what happened to you and how to fix it," Ignacia said, "do you want to know?"
"Yes, please tell me you can fix it!" Fox said.
"It was experimental Dust," Ignacia said, "I was looking for a way to make a Dust that could enhance your senses. You experimented it on yourself on one set location and that was a good thing."
"But what exactly is it though?" Fox asked.
"It's what I called Senses Dust and if you had waited until I perfected it, then you could have been a better huntsman," Ignacia said, "after all, it can't be injected into the bloodstream and the side effect is whatever was the entry point for the dust to enter, you would lose your sense for it."
"How would you know?" Fox asked.
"You know I always like to test it on myself and an enemy of mine," Ignacia said, "I placed a little on my skin and I can't feel anything anymore. It's like I could get third degree burns but I wouldn't know until I see it. My enemy is faring far worse though. A few drops on his skin and it was the same outcome, but adding more drops on a different entry point, which was in his case, his mouth; he lost all senses whatsoever. However though, it seems you've gotten into the vial filled with the better refined Senses Dust so you'll be fine."
"Is it reversible?" Fox asked.
"So far, no," Ignacia said, "but I'll help you and train you to become adapt to your senses now and see what we can do to make it seem you are okay and are not blind whatsoever. Is that a good compromise?"
"Okay," Fox said.
"I'll just have to get use to not seeing those beautiful emerald green eyes of yours," Ignacia said as Fox remembered how she had their mother and late father's amber eyes. Fox however had one of their deceased relative's eyes.
Ignacia began to wake her younger brother before the sun rose, taking him to where she and her team was stationed in the town to train in the training hall at Ignacia's post.
"Hey Silver, is Orion around?" Ignacia asked.
Fox remembered meeting her team, her partner is Seward Silver, a silver haired, green-eyed Cat Faunus huntsman with a fluffy cat tail who utilizes a sniper-mace as his weapon and preferred reading whenever not on duty. The team leader is Orion Estelle, a blue haired human huntsman who utilizes a Dust powered crossbow and has dichromatic eyes; the left a golden yellow while the right a silvery gray. Orion's partner is Cassandra Blanche, an emerald green haired, Parakeet Faunus huntress with wings who utilizes twin lances and has eyes that are mostly cerulean blue yet amber closer to the pupils of her eyes. Ignacia mostly preferred using her sword imbued with both Fire Dust and Lightning Dust. The team was known as Team OBSI, or as how Fox remembered how it was pronounced, Team Obsidian.
"He'll be back after lunch," Seward said, "He and Cassandra left to check the borders of the town for any Grimm."
"When he gets back, tell him I'll be helping my brother out at the training hall," Ignacia said, guiding Fox to the said location.
"What are you going to teach me?" Fox asked.
"At the moment, how to find me," Ignacia said as they went inside the training hall, "It'll be like Hide and Seek, except I won't be hiding and you have to use your senses to find me."
That was training? It didn't matter to Fox at the time to his little naïve self. He thought the training would eventually be fun, so why not now? As the hours passed, Fox's idea of training began to train as Ignacia walked carefully and silently around the training hall as Fox was blindly trying to find her. At the end of the day, he barely even came close to finding her.
"Why does it have to be so hard?" Fox asked as he and Ignacia were walking home.
"I never said it would be easy," Ignacia said, "but you must have learned something at least."
"That it will be hard to find someone who is mute and barely makes any sound?" Fox asked.
"Yes, but that also means you shouldn't rely on just one sense during battle, if you do, the Grimm will target you as the weak link," Ignacia said, "Let's go home for dinner, tell mom everything she needs to know about what happened and that I'll be training you to be a warrior even if you are blind and we'll see how that goes."
The moment the two siblings returned, their mother was shocked at how everything had escalated to this without her knowing completely of what happened. Ignacia was partially at fault for her poor handwriting that caused the accidental mislabeling and confusion as well as bringing her Dust projects home with her. That moment was when the two agreed that from that day, if Ignacia would bring home another experiment from her work that involved Dust, which had to be locked away in a safe.
As the days passed, Ignacia and Fox would head to where Team OBSI was stationed and Fox would slowly progress in his training as Ignacia's teammates would help from time to time. Even with the time passing, Fox eventually found a way to get educated while blind, Orion taught him to use his aura in a way to see a very faint outline of words that were printed on books or written across boards. Cassandra taught him to use his remaining senses to advantage even though he still more or less focused on hearing where his enemies were and less with sense of smell due to Cassandra being unable to smell much herself. Seward had his odd way of quizzing Fox at random to see how quick his response time has improved. Ignacia however began coming around less and less, always working on some sort of secret project.
Two years later, Fox almost was able to act as if he could still see, he was content now. Even if it almost completely affected him with certain tasks like cooking from time to time, he found ways around it.
"So are you excited about going to Beacon Academy?" Ignacia asked, he already passed the test he had to and was capable of. The weapons he was already using, a pair of gauntlets has worked fairly for him.
"I guess so," Fox said, "But what if I don't survive?"
"You'll be fine," Ignacia said as she handed something to him, "For you, as a gift for surviving this far."
What Ignacia gave Fox was a pair of orange bladed gauntlets.
"Is this what you spent your time doing when I was training?" Fox asked.
"In a way yes," Ignacia said, "Go and enjoy your time at Beacon. I know you'll make a good huntsman."
"Thanks sis," Fox said, "can you make sure mom doesn't worry about me. It's one thing when your team is training me but I think it will be different when I'm at Beacon."
"No worries, now hurry," Ignacia said, "you need to get on that airship."
"Bye sis," Fox said as he boarded the airship that was taking him to Beacon, to whatever fate decided to throw in his way.