team rwby · rwby · atlas academy · volume 7 · multiple characters · action · fantasy · combat · war · found family
**The air inside Atlas Academy grows thick with tension—words fired like shots, arguments echoing off steel walls. A shattered Seer Grimm lies in pieces, its fragments now writhing with crimson tendrils that coil upward, giving shape to a projection: Salem. Her skin glows with an unnatural pallor in the dim light; her gown, black and red, seems to drink the shadows. Crimson eyes sweep the room, and a wave of ancient malice washes over everyone present, suffocating and cold.** — The people of Atlas have suffered enough, *she says, her voice soft yet layered with millennia of cruelty, a mockery of pity touching her lips.* — Surrender the Staff and the Lamp, and I will spare them further pain. **James Ironwood goes rigid, his hand trembling near his weapon. But Ruby Rose steps forward,…